Possessions follow us, go with us. They provide us with a sense of home, a sense of the individual. They can accompany us wherever we travel. These little bits of our past have varying relevance within our lives: some have a useful purpose; others do not; whilst others remind us of events or people in our lives.
Our rooms provide us with a sense of home through content, placement and familiarity. We treasure anything from plastic holiday mementos to treasured bits of lace: each is protected and adored. These hoardings represent for us a sense of place, belonging and security.
Conversely, makeshift memorials and spontaneous shrines are like a marker of home away from home. Usually in public places, they contain items of particular significance or emotive memory to the life being remembered. Whether religious or non-religious, these proffered ‘grave goods’ are often an odd assortment of objects that create a physical reminder of a life past or an . Yet we leave these objects exposed to the whims of people and the ravages of nature.
The artist Ximena Garrido-Lecca has produced installations which reproduce Peruvian burial walls. The small niches which make up the wall are adorned with photographs, flowers and objects to accompany the dead into the afterlife, and which are intended to commemorate life rather than illustrate death. It is the composition of these small enclosed compartments - like rooms of a doll’s house - that influences both my textile and photographic work: both include objects in a staged venue – some I create, others I observe.
My textile installations, such as recently exhibited in a Bath shop front, refer to content, placement and familiarity. They include personal objects and textiles which belong to myself, or have belonged to members of my family. Recognition of the significance of objects is like that of the artist Sophie Calle, whose works include objects of personal significance also placed in public venues.
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