Sculpture & Combined Media
Alannah Bates
‘Eyes lowered, head bent, shoulders hunched-the position signifies repression and subjugation, yet the embroiderer’s silence, her concentration also suggests a self-containment, a kind of autonomy.’ – Rozsika Parker, The subversive Stitch, 1984
My work re-imagines the feminine as a foundation for potential feminist growth. I explore the construct of femininity by utilising artistic processes that have long been scorned by the art world as “women’s work,” such as spinning and weaving. These art forms are examined in conjunction with concepts such as the wilderness and the natural world, constructs which bear misogynistic undertones due to their longstanding conflation with the female identity. By re-contextualising and contemporising these processes and ideologies, I hope to unpack cultural concepts. In reclaiming these processes that have historically been diminished due to their association with the feminine, I hope that the feminine can be recast and empowered.
“one hundred years” abstracts and digitalises the process of weaving. Using collage and compositing to illustrate the growth of the vines and fibres I have previously used to weave sculptural artworks, I animate the intertwining of vines to portray growth and the passage of time. The title of this piece is borrowed from the fairytale “Sleeping Beauty,” in which a castle and it’s people are cursed to be put to sleep and swallowed by overgrowth for one hundred years. It explores the similarities between weaving as a human process of combination, and the tangling of weeds as a natural process of combination.