Strange Allure

An ongoing project which began with home and memory creating work which concentrates on the subject/object relationship as seen within the framework of home and memory with emphasis on the disjointed nature of memory and an exploration of how the objects we interact with behave. Within this context the work explores several related themes which connect to our relationship with objects, specifically looking at the house as an active participant in this relationship. For example the concept of the haunted house and the genre of the gothic novel where the haunted castle trope changes to that of the domestic house and so masculine changes to feminine, bringing about a consideration of the female body inhabiting the domestic space. The depiction of the female protagonist in eg The Yellow Wallpaper, The Haunting of Hill House and Great Expectations, represents this connection as does Francesca Woodman's photographs of herself in domestic interiors, inside kitchen cupboards, climbing up doorframes and being engulfed by wallpaper. Looking at the haunted house and the representation of women in horror, the abject and Barbara Creed's Monstrous Feminine, the work considers these representations and connections with, or the dissolving of, the boundary between subject and object. The work touches on aspects of ageing in place and the role of cherished possessions in that situation when the connection with objects including the house becomes stronger and to be separated from the object or vice versa would be akin to a loss of self. Like the hoarder's connectedness to their hoard. Using a corporeal element conjoined with a domestic object the work begins to explore these themes.