The photographs, exploring line, texture and tone, depict an unfinished bamboo sculpture of a sewing machine carcass. Warmth and weightlessness of the old woolen shawl that I used to be wrapped in when I was a child, as well as the sharpness of the machine structure communicate the relationship of generations of women in my family. There, in a traditional patriarchal household, women have been the housewives and the homemakers. Regardless of the lack of outside pressure, it is the role that I fear, battle, yet cannot help but fulfill.Newspaper is commonly used to cover windows when a re-decoration or construction work is going on inside of a building. The purpose of it is unclear; possibly the aim is to provide some privacy for the workers, or to create a sense of mystery for the neighborhood. Newsprint is also used to wrap groceries: fish and chips are traditionally placed in the newspaper, whether used, blank or, recently, pretend. Nowadays, in multinational Ireland, the paper used for wrapping goods in a shop tends to reflect the homeland of the owner and the nationality of the target customers. Thus, in an Asian food store, the seller will wrap the peculiar–looking vegetables in newsprint with logograms, and one might get a sourdough bun wrapped in Cyrillic writing in an Eastern European delicatessen.
The juxtaposition of the material of the work, the newsprint, the subject of the image, and the window come together to portray home, in its mixture of places, fears and stereotypes.
Billy Pa's Chip Shop, Hospital Shop Window Festival, Hospital, Ireland, 2014