OLD BIRD
Old Bird is the sculptural installation the artist created from her late mother’s clothes for the ‘Future Archaeology’ show at Camden Art Centre. Using her late mother's nighties, vest, jumpers and pressure stockings as the main material for the work, the piece explores the themes of ageing, loss and myth through a feminist and absurdist lens.
Each repurposed garment becomes a poignant symbol of remembrance, imbued with memories and emotions that transcend their material form.
The artist chose to use absurdity to counter the depressing subject matter of death and dementia by combining the familiar and domestic; a rotary washing line and clothing with the fantastical; images of bird-women hybrids screen printed onto mum’s clothing and huge soft bird talons sewn from her mother’s jumper and pressure socks. The title Old Bird also plays with subverting and owning the British sexist slang for a woman.
The hybrid bird-female figures are inspired by research into mythological winged deities and monsters including Ishtar, Lileth, Sirens and Harpys: who were often seen as monstrous women. As Barbara Creed writes in her seminal book The Monstrous-Feminine, classical mythology was populated with gendered monsters, many of which were female.
The bird female figures represent the artist’s mother – she wanted to be free, but she was immobilised by disability and dementia in the last year of her life. The inversion of the clothing by hanging them upside down symbolised the reversal of control for the artist and her mother with which was strange and uncomfortable for both of them.
