Willow Smith has shut herself in a box for 24 hours as part of a performance to display what her experience with anxiety is like.
Described as a “personification of the emotional spectrum within the human mind through performance art”, the piece – titled “The Anxiety” – took place at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art on March 11. Museum guests watched Smith and her boyfriend Tyler Cole, who were separated from each other by a glass pane, write affirmations on the box walls with paint. They didn’t speak for the entire 24 hours.
The performance comes ahead of the pair’s collaborative album The Anxiety, which is released today (March 13).
Speaking to the LA Times, Smith explained that the idea for the performance came from the process of recording the album. “We were like, ‘Wouldn’t it be so interesting if we could personify this experience? Starting from being scared and feeling alone and moving to a place of acceptance and joy?’”
“We understand this is a very sensitive subject,” Smith continued. “And we don’t want to be like, ‘Our experience is the experience.’ This is just us expressing our personal experience with this.”
This isn’t Smith’s first foray into performance art – last year, the “Samo Is Now” singer took to London’s Central Line to launch the Prada sports line with a bit of impromptu busking.