Artist Residency in the black forest, germany

@kunstort-eleven-artspace

‘Lean on Me’

Lay your head on my chest, on my arms and in my lap….

Materials: Cotton, lace, polyester, needle and thread 

What to do with too many winter clothes and extra weight when travelling Europe in the summer….?

My material excess - now a place for heads to rest - in the form of bodily pillows, hand sewn from my cut up and re-assembled winter dresses, skirts, and windcheaters.

My winter clothing becomes both functional and intimate, soft sculptures, pieces of me which I leave behind to comfort future artists in residency..     

suspended stories

Video stills from a single channel video installation shown in Tubingen, Gernany

‘Suspended Stories’ Anad ‘rapunzel revisited’ are two short video experiments filmed at Schloss Weitenburg Castle, which playfully touch on the underlying sinister, feminine themes within German fairy tales.  

During my residency, the Neckar Valley landscape, filled with forests, villages and castles -  conjured up memories, within me of images and stories from German and European fairy tales, which I had loved as a child. The German ones in particular, being stories recorded by the Brothers Grimm, though they often actually originated from a rich oral tradition − passed down from generation to generation, by women seeking to pass the time during household chores.

The story of Snow White is centered on domestic objects which are imbued with magical powers that bring both good and bad fortune - a red apple, a hair comb, corset laces, a mirror

and a sewing pin. These objects are generally used by women, and become feminine objects of torture in this story where Snow White’s step – mother tries to repeatedly murder her with them. Within these tales, women often use such domestic objects to punish other women, generally as a punishment for their beauty.

rapunzel revisited

Single channel video shown in Germany

Rapunzel, like Cinderella, is a story based on the main female character being isolated in some way… 

Rapunzel’s hair hangs, feeling around for something or someone to connect with, to aid her escape – her hair being a kind of magical tentacle which connects her with the outside world.     

In these videos the state of ‘hanging’ references a kind of limbo situation between power and powerlessness, the banal and the magical.