Bag Lady II, Oozell’s Square, B’ham, January 2003
Using layers of clothing to change and sculpt representations of the mother’s body, this site-specific work used an apparently public space outside the Ikon gallery in Birmingham. My activity was carefully monitored in this space, by a security guard because though public this space is privately owned.
As well as referencing masquerades of gendered selfhood it referenced dichotomies of private/public space The omission, exclusion and lack of representation of women in art and manmade public spaces is especially difficult for mothers.
To a looped anxious repetitive sound track, I sculpted a baby out of lard and with repetitive backwards and forwards movements emptied a suitcase of baby clothes and equipment creating a quasi-domestic scene. It was a performance for the dispossessed. Whether street tramps or women, women are Other. Burdened with outsideness despite bearing the future of society.
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