Haylie Ferguson submerged in a pale blue chamber, wearing a white draped gown

The Bell Jar by Haylie Ferguson

OB.SCENA / INSTALLMENT IIMAISON OBLIQUE2026
I / CONDITIONTHE AIR IS THE SAME

To the person under it, the bell jar is a Tuesday.

Nothing dramatic occurs. The rooms stay beautiful. The plants are watered on schedule. The subject answers messages within a reasonable window and is described by acquaintances as well.

What changes is transmission. Sound arrives late. Affection arrives at the wrong temperature. The distance between a life and the person living it is measured here in millimetres of glass.

The record is filed in two parts. Esther Greenwood gives the account from inside, by a narrator who can name the damage and still romanticises it. Victoria Lucas, the name Sylvia Plath used to publish her novel, returns to the same history in a clinical register: what happened, by what mechanism, and what stayed.

This record describes occupancy: the ordinary competence of continuing inside a sealed volume, and the performance required to make that look like living.

Haylie Ferguson in a white silk gown standing in a flooded pale blue salon, a bell jar drawn in fine white line around her, two cats watching
PLATE 01 / SUBJECT SEALED / ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE STABLE
II / FILESCASE FILES / ROOM INDEX
FILE 01 / 5:13

Esther

The Bell Jar: Esther Greenwood album cover, close portrait of Haylie Ferguson submerged in pale blue water
  • FIG TREE EVENT
  • MULTIPLE FUTURES IDENTIFIED
  • SELECTION FAILED

“Some cups crack under oceans they were handed”

OPEN FILE
ESTHER GREENWOOD / 13 FILES RELEASED / SEQUENCE AS PUBLISHED
Haylie Ferguson reflected in broken mirror fragments among handwritten letters and dried hydrangeas
PLATE 04 / REFLECTION DISPERSED / HYDRANGEA SPECIMENS
III / DIAGRAMFIG TREE EVENT / BRANCHING SPECIMEN STUDY
F-01F-02F-03F-04F-05F-06F-07F-08F-09F-10F-11F-12

Each fig is a life she could have had. Choosing one starves the others; waiting starves them all. The diagram does not resolve.

SELECT A SPECIMEN / SELECTION HAS CONSEQUENCES
FUTURES REMAINING
12 / 12
SELECTION
PENDING
IV / ROOMSTHE APARTMENT / MEMORY ARCHITECTURE
Haylie Ferguson lying in pale blue water wearing a white dress
SUBJECT SEATED / DURATION EXCEEDS FOUR HOURS

The afternoon went past the window like something being delivered elsewhere.

Haylie Ferguson photographed through a pane of shattered glass in a dim concrete room
V / FRACTURE / PLATE 03

The glass remembers the impact.

Fracture origin undetermined. Structure holds. Visibility reduced in both directions.

VI / MATERIALRECOVERED MATERIAL / CONTACT SHEET
VII / CATALOGUETHE BELL JAR / TWO PARTS, ONE ARCHIVE
the bell jar: esther greenwood cover
PART I / AVAILABLE NOW

the bell jar: esther greenwood

Part I / 13 FILES / RELEASED 4 SEPTEMBER 2026

Part I of The Bell Jar. Thirteen files told from inside the jar by a narrator who can name the damage and still romanticises it, opening on the fig tree and closing on an alarm set for no one.

the bell jar: victoria lucas cover: Haylie Ferguson suspended in a water-filled cube in a white draped gown
PART II / AVAILABLE NOW

the bell jar: victoria lucas

Part II / 17 FILES / RELEASED 25 SEPTEMBER 2026

Part II of The Bell Jar, filed under the name Sylvia Plath used to publish her novel. Seventeen files that return to the same history in a clinical register: what happened, by what mechanism, and what stayed.

STREAMING LINKS ARRIVINGOPEN 17 FILES
the bell jar. cover
ARCHIVAL EDITION / DEMONSTRATION RECORDINGS

the bell jar.

The earlier working recordings of The Bell Jar, kept as an archival edition.

OPEN DEMOS ON SPOTIFY ↗
LISTENING CHAMBER / PART I / ESTHER GREENWOOD
13 FILES / AVAILABLE NOW
PRESSURE STABLE / PLAYBACK PERMITTEDOPEN FULL RECORD ↗

PRESSURE EQUALISED / NO FURTHER OBSERVATION SCHEDULED

Some afternoons the room is only a room. Nothing has been resolved. The light is simply on the floor again, and she is in it.

Haylie Ferguson at a table in a pale apartment, seen through broken glass, beside a specimen dome
VIII / CLOSING STATEMENTPART II / FILE 16 / I AM (THE OLD BRAG OF THE HEART)

I am,I am,I am.

Heartbeat recorded through the seal / 74 bpm / still counting