Memorial/Hanky, found objects and fabric 6000x 4500mm 2005

Exhibition History:

MFA graduation exhibition Monash University, Melbourne Australia 2005

Oceania Centre, University of the South Pacific, Suva Fiji 2005

The Op Shop ( group exhibition) Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland NSW Australia 2013

The work is formed by two inconsistent grids of hankerchiefs sewn onto lengths of backing fabric and facing each other across a narrow walkway almost as if they were in conversation. Most of the hankies were donated to me once I started talking freely about the work I was making and tended to come with stories about the person to whom they belonged or events the hankies had attended. The hankies seemed to have their own agency and that I have always remembered.

All of the hankies were sewn to the transparent backing fabric along the top edge only so that they articulated a separate movement to that fabric.

When this was installed in the Oceania Centre of the USP in Suva Fiji the work was taken down at the end of each day and rehung in the morning. This performative element drew a consistent audience as people came, sat on the stone wall across from the sculpture pavilion and watched the ritual.

I wanted to add one of the stories that accompanied this work. This story belongs to the red handkerchief on the right hand side fabric panel two or three rows from the bottom.

'Three handkerchiefs including this red one were given to me by my husband’s aunt, Rose. A while later she told the story that her mother having several children had put three handkerchiefs into her handbag when she took all the family into town one Saturday afternoon. While they were out, the house burnt to the ground and very little was salvageable. I was shocked that Rose wanted me to have the handkerchiefs, but she kept saying that she’d rather they were doing something useful.'  

Most of the stories are held in the archive of my memory and that is not the most reliable form.