I am trying to illustrate the uncomfortable, restrictive and claustrophobic feeling being a member of a family can be. After looking at countless art books and the internet I have decided to make a tunnel through which I want the viewers to walk through. The tunnel will be made of second hand clothes and stitched together by hand; the clothes will symbolize impressions that are put onto us every day; and it could be by people or the media. The stitching will symbolize how we all are bound together in our family units, and I also want it to give connotations to the craft element with references to the female creative history. The tunnel itself will be life, walking through it has to be uncomfortable so it will have to be a little bit lower than the average height of an adult. I don’t want it to be straight; it will be winding itself round in the gallery space, the length will be proportional with the amount of time I have to stitch it together. Like life it will be winding itself around the space. Inside the tunnel I would like to have an audio piece playing, and at the moment I think it will be the sound from my mother’s birthday party, this is the sound of my own family, so using this will make the piece a self portrait because these people in the audio piece is the people that have influenced my life in different ways, they are a part of me, some even genetically (my children, husband, parents, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunties, uncles and cousins).
