This collage series is being shown at the Desperate Artwives exhibition to coincide with the FiLiA (formerly Feminists in London) conference at the Institue of Education.
This series of collages was inspired by seventies science-fiction feminist writing, in particular ‘The Female Man’ in which four women from different worlds encounter each other and are forced to reflect upon their own preconceptions about what it is to be a woman.
The central motif of the collages (the mannequin legs, taken from a hosiery advert) and threads are references to the female connection with the spinner as female in folklore, whether in the mythology of the three fates, Grandmother Spider or Bourgeois’ giant bronzes. The theme of weaving also refers to the weaving of narrative and passing on of information via stories, folk tales or even modern newsfeeds, and how these stories can become distorted and oppressive.