Proposal Abstract

Through my art practice, I consider social constructions of life stages and contemporary implementations of print media. Currently, I am concentrating on the shared assumptions of the perceived life phase of young womanhood through practices that explore my embodied experience negotiating this perception while enduring violence.

My negotiations of public space are informed by my experiences with and memories of traumatic public gender-based violence. As a method for production and knowledge-making, I embody the coping mechanism of looking down. Stemming from my experiences with violence, I have learned to consciously and subconsciously rely on looking down in order to move through public spaces alone. I have harnessed this coping mechanism and shaped it into a research method: as I negotiate daily life and site-specific routes, often looking down, I collect images, make notes, and collect objects that garner my attention. This collection is then used during the production of much of my works.

Compelled by the perception of young womanhood as joyous and carefree, my work often incorporates stereotypically feminine jubilant embellishments such as confetti, sprinkles and sequins. Additionally, this imagery references the coping mechanism of outwardly projecting joy and often works to candy-coat the adverse, painful and vulnerable reality of enduring trauma.

Overall, my work aims to problematise shared assumptions of perceived identity while bringing into question what goes unnoticed and unattended to when we are merely coping. In turn, I aim to present the opportunity for viewers to consider their responsibility to aid in one another’s safety.