Containing the minumental self.

This body of work is a close up examination of the notion that the self is a container which we navigate through during each day. It focuses on the minumental activities undertaken during the course of each day, and their associated routine and monotony. The work aims to open a window into the relationship between the domestic space and the ‘minumental self’. 

Hatpins.

The feminine aspect of the hat pin is something I wanted to play on, its decorative aspects more so than the function. The romantic ideas surrounding ladies and their hats/pins are one of an upper middle class, where domestic chores were done by another female. The heads of the pins depict scenes or maps which depict the chore of putting out the rubbish; all three pins form different aspects of this minumental act.  ‘Mapping the trip to the rubbish bin outside by the shed’; ‘must have climbed those stairs 100 times today’; and finally ‘pull the door to after me’ . 

There is some evidence that they were also used as weapons; in 1908, an English judge, fearing that the pins could be used as weapons in his court, ordered a group of suffragettes on trial to remove their hatpins and hats, an insulting request for women at the time. This sinister aspect also hangs over the pin’s function and the wearer; it is not just decorative, but challenges the female role as a caring, nurturing being. The owner could turn violent if provoked and use the jewellery as a weapon; the femme fatale putting out the rubbish.