Victorian Invention, The Pedspeed (AP)

From Oda's Victorian Invention series — an unexpected but revealing body of work in which she places her characteristic goddess figures within the technological novelty landscape of the Victorian era, surrounded by the whimsical mechanical inventions of the nineteenth century. The Pedspeed — a pedal-powered vehicle — becomes in Oda's hands an occasion for feminist humor and celebration: the goddess figure driving, pedaling, or otherwise commandeering the machine of Victorian technological optimism. The series reflects Oda's interest in the relationship between women and technology, and in recovering the history of women who engaged with the modern world's mechanical possibilities on their own terms. The AP designation indicates an artist's proof.