Domestic Chains - Necklace or Noose?
With ambiguity between movement and freedom, necklaces can be removed from the neck, but in life, detachment isn't that simple.... the act of struggle for many continues.
Domestic Chains engages with the counter balance of strength, fragility and power within the home. Usually hidden from public view, domestic pressures are presented in a series of over-sized statement necklace nooses. Struggles are no longer hidden, instead they are dragged out of the house into the public sphere.
This ongoing series of domestic chains presented as both film and still image includes the following works:
'Whose Celebrating?'
Birthday parties, are they a celebration or stress? Inflated with social pressure to show, please and buy love? Here, birthday balloons are displaced from their role as objects representing a joyous marker in time, instead, giant 0’s forming the links of a chain.
Years of time may pass but inequalities still exist. Gold in appearance, their foil materiality doesn't hold the same weight materially or in value. When worn they don't conform, the large scale links hinder and get in the way.
'Fried + Foiled'
Aluminium, the metal of domesticity. Foil maybe lightweight, but the soaring costs of feeding a family are an ongoing challenge.
'All Wrapped Up'
We wrap ourselves and our children in woollen blankets, jumpers and bobble hats, a shield of comfort from colder, harsher conditions. 'All Wrapped Up' speaks of the weight this parental relationship can have, the largest pom pom on the chain weighing the equivalent of an average female heart.
'Scrubber'
Cleaning and caring for others can be tiresome and abrasive to ones soul, spirit and independence. Formed of a wire scouring pad with just one thin metal string, it looks nice, until it looks dirty.