Mot Juste 2016
Mot Juste means the perfect thing. It is a series of wearable sculptures or costumes for performance addressing the topic of domestic and sexual violence against women using metaphor, humorous transformations and the aesthetics of garments. It was made in collaboration with artist Justyna Koeke (German-Polish).
The project was funded by Fingal Councty Council Arts Office and the Arts Council of Ireland and constructed in Draíocht Arts Centre Blanchardstown Dublin in 2016.
Concrete Woman, one of the works, was inspired by the story of Clodagh Hawe's bloody murder at the hands of her husband (Ireland 2016) who also took the lives of their three boys. I thought if she had been wearing a concrete dress it would have protected her against the attack, so I made one in her honour.
The other works from the series variously protect the bodies of their wearers physically or spiritually (as with the Brigid's Goddess ensemble). In the case of Boat Girl, she can make a quick getaway on water as she is wearing her boat. Future Woman can teleport herself into the past or future, changing her destiny and perhaps also the fate of the world.
The series of constricted costumes made of microfiber stockinette and found objects reflect the restrictions on women bodies and agency in our world. They also offer an ironic re-presentation of the images and objects of oppression - such as the symbolic phallus or objects of exploitation or cruelty - as an attempt to
reverse their function or meaning and use them as empowering motifs or emblems of liberation.