Teresa Mignan : A Poem for Pepperland

Teresa Mignan arrived at Vanities Gallery with the instincts of someone trained to listen — to communities, to data, to the quiet signals that numbers and people alike send out when something is wrong. A student of public health and international studies at the University of Michigan, she brings to her internship a sensibility forged less in studios than in the field: curious, attentive, committed to what remains unseen.

It is perhaps no coincidence that this particular exhibition caught her attention. Stratégie de la Douceur speaks a language she already knows — that of things hidden in plain sight, of strength mistaken for fragility.

Faced with the work of Babayaga Pepperland, Teresa responded with a poem. In She Shall Be Recognized, she gives voice to a figure simultaneously celebrated and reduced, praised and dismissed — a woman the world has not quite decided how to hold. Moving between reverence and grief, the piece echoes the unresolved tension at the heart of the exhibition: the feminine as something perpetually named, rarely truly seen. Her final line — you are the one they reject — lands with the quiet precision of Babayaga Pepperland's own images: an entry through beauty, an exit through truth.

Teresa reminds us that art needs no disciplinary boundaries to truly resonate.

She shall be recognized

Oh lady oh lady

We shall devote our souls

Oh lady oh lady

The power you hold

Oh lady oh lady

Some may view you as just a hole

Oh lady oh lady

Without your existence life would be dull

Oh lady oh lady

How aren’t you loved by all

Oh lady oh lady

You deserve nothing small

Oh lady oh lady

The representation of nature

Oh lady oh lady

You give us adventure

Oh lady oh lady

Your peace we must protect

Oh lady oh lady

You are the one they reject

Teresa Mignan, june 2026

Teresa Mignan and Babayaga Pepperland