all the women who taught me to sew saw this coming
2021
tote bags, ribbon, thread spools, Mediastar 32GB usb, shirt and skirt fabric, earrings, 5 Rs. coin, clothing tags, denim, denim fibres, tapestry needle, sequinned shirt, sewing kit, sewing scissors, spoon, knife, bra, buttons, assorted button bags, knit scraps, Oscillococcinum bottles, needle sharpener, hot glue, sewing thread, safety pins, bra straps, belt strap, watch strap, watch face, plastic spice bottle, chiffon gift bags, cassette player converter, necklace cord, chain, replaceable razor head case, lace socks, string, lace.
75 x 30 x 0.5 in.
This piece extends a meditation on:
- female garment workers in the age of international production;
- the three women who taught me to sew and bore witness to my impatience, thus likely foreseeing the creation of a piece about sewing with more glue than stitches;
- the larger history of women in my family who were exemplars of domestic life for the sake of marital success and feeding children, not for love of the tasks themselves;
- and myself, who loves the tasks for the way the thread revives their memories, and listens as each unpicked fibre tells me its story and how far it has come from the farms of my motherland(s).
I utilised material waste of traditionally female domestic tasks, while assembling deconstructed garments alongside hardware materials of the technological age, working to expand the colloquial and often masculinised understanding of ‘a technology.’ I also incorporated garment labels which trace global methods of production to my maternal country of origin Sri Lanka, synthesising my interest in global industry, women’s craft art practices, and personal history.
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