Culprits of Contamination
‘Where there is dirt, there is a system. Dirt is the by-product of a system of ordering and classification of matter’ (Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, 1934)
Considering the socially constructed nature of ideas around both ‘dirt’ (Douglas, 1966) and ‘madness’ (Foucault, 1961), this project moves back and forth between self and society, reflecting on and exposing the interplay between the two.
The Unspeakable
‘Public reality, what was agreed fact about the external world, did not seem able to tell me what was important for me […] But might there not perhaps be a private reality, a reality of feeling rather than of knowing’ (Milner, A Life of One’s Own, 1934)
This project reveals a private reality. Visually describing, not explaining. Starting with questions but no answers beyond the works created.
Repressed Structures
‘Negation is a way of acknowledging the repressed, indeed it amounts to a lifting of the repression’ (Freud, The Uncanny)
Covering or concealing and yet demanding our attention, perhaps more interesting than what’s in plain sight. Coping mechanisms as an external armour and skin to the outside world; originally existing as a temporary solution yet coming to adopt their own form and relation to the world. Shape, colour and texture is shaped by what’s underneath, inaccessible to us except when revealed in unexpected or intriguing ways.
The Unheimlich
The uncanny (‘the unhomely’) is in some way a species of the familiar (the heimlich, the homely)’. (Freud, The Uncanny)
Feeling most uneasy in the least unsettling of scenes—those closest to home or with our loved ones. Our human nature prohibits us ever feeling totally ‘at-home’ or free from angst.
Suburban Solitude
Semi-detachment
A semblance of self. An intention to individuate yet undifferentiated. Alone in our sameness, the same in our aloneness.