Finished the Pop Up exhibition, in partnership with Jenny Butcher.She was exploring the “ties” that get severed and fragmented by adoption. It was excellent to have the time and space to develop a piece of work together.
I had to write a statement which was a challenge……
The Ties that Bind
This installation constructed by Jenny Butcher and Glen Gerrard explores ties that bind society together.
Humans are social animals and look for groups to join, identify with, to improve their chances of survival and development
become prey.
To become an acceptable member of the cultural group each society requires that women dress according to cultural expectation. Women’s dress is judged; she should be feminine, attractive and available but not too female; attract too much attention or look as if she is “up for it”.
To represent this dilemma I chose the symbol of the Maypole because it was for many years the dance that young virgins would compete to join each spring.
It can be seen as a pretty celebration of pleasure and freedom, but the girls are entangled in the ribbons [in my imagination] so they have to dance in circles, going nowhere, round and round, repeating the same steps, for the pleasure of the on-lookers.
To me this represents the cultural expectations that can trap women [in this case], the wish to comply, co-operate, become part of the group that signals acceptance, togetherness, success.
To dance to the tune of patriarchal society.
The figures wear skirts that are fragments of fabric designed by fashion guru Zandra Rhodes. Colourful and light [indeed covering lampshades, hiding the light?] very expensive. The creativity of Rhodes becomes the fashion industry’s uniform, a camouflage for the individual.
The ribbons to the Maypole are strips cut from re-cycled and re-dyed silk saris, similarly bright and light but meant to cover and hide the female shape, from head to toe, from public gaze.
The repeated faces are printed on pizza bases, the food of the over-weight while the figures are striving to be fashionably thin, so thin their ribs dominate.
And obviously, the phallic symbol/Maypole is the elephant in the room.
