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Perceptions of reality are also addressed in "Wir unter uns", 2000. This piece, however, does not explore individual perceptions but those of a group. The floor sculpture consists of ten bulbous formations covered with mouthlike orifices and thorns that are arranged in a seemingly hermetic circle. The back side that faces the viewer, the thorns and the circular arrangement of the sculpture evoke the impression of defence and exclusion. Julie Hayward refers to Plato’s cave parable. Here a group of people who grew up in a cave take ideas, thoughts to be the real world and the actual outside world to be the shadow of these thoughts and ideas. Plato stated that even if one member of the group were to leave the cave and to recognize the real world, this person would see this insight as being false and would return to the perception of the group. Applying Plato’s insight to the functioning of society within economic structures has resulted in a principle which Irving Janis has described as "groupthink". In homogenous groups with too much self-referentiality solutions suggested from the outside are refused and prevented, which often leads to false decisions. Hayward’s sculptures visualize that potential situation. She addresses both the sense of being safe and sound within the group and the hermetic exclusion. "Wir unter uns" does not just deal with a concrete issue taken from concrete, psychological research. It also reflects a society today in which the "alien", the "other" is not accepted.

With the group of sculptures titled "Core-Protector" (2000) and
"Inside-Out" (1999), she turned thematically to the "inner life" or the question of the psychological development of the self, working for the first time with transparent materials. In "Core-Protector", a zeppelin made of paper and covered with circular openings wraps a core of red plush. Like "Inside-Out", this hanging sculpture reveals the inside, emphasizing it with the color and the haptic quality of the plush material – which invites one to touch and analyze it. The title "Core-Protector" alludes to "core energetics", a scientific theory, in which Pierrakos, a student of Wilhelm Reich, assumes that the psychological core of a person is surrounded by protective layers and energy. In disturbances, these layers become congested and can thus block the flow of energy. In her sculpture the artist alludes not only to this model but also to a general emotional situation in which feelings can be exchanged. In "Inside-Out" a red tube made of plush juts out from the inner core, which has been cut in half, and extends to the ceiling to which it tries to dock onto.

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A further sculpture, "Informationsassimilator", deals with filtering information. Four oval forms with large openings that are mounted onto a gray plush surface on the wall, seem to take in all sorts of impressions and information that all lead to a larger, organ-like structure placed on the plush. A circular plush rug in front of this center piece could be the result, spit out, of the filtering process, symbolizing both of what has been filtered and what has been digested. For the first time Hayward integrates in these works machine aspects. The sculptures evoke the representation of abstract processes of the human emotional world which, when accompanied by humor and irony, often seem to carry these emotions to an extreme.
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cited from:
The Parallel Worlds of Emotional and Unconscious Realms
Sabine Schaschl-Cooper
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