Soft Target [2020]
film, installation, performance piecesalvaged 45-yr old doona, Sydney river sand, velcro, 200x52cm
Exhibited in The Anti-Annual, Join-The-Dots & You, me & us, No. 23 Gallery
soft target (noun): a person or thing that is relatively unprotected or vulnerable,
especially to military or terrorist attack
film still from ‘Soft Target (2020): The Ritual’
‘Soft Target’ came as a response to both a textile item from my everyday, and to the concept of cultural baggage. Taking the form of a garment, an ephemeral performance, a photographic series, video installation and social media blog my work is an exploration in reconciliation of vulerability and articulates many internal conflicts I feel when carrying the weight of ancestral heritage and tradition.
Anti-Annual installation at Join the Dots, Marrickville, photo by Liam BlackMy work examines our family’s relationship with soule tekkid [feather down doonas], as we often sleep with no sheets between and there remains a level of discomfort experienced particularly in the warmer months. This dichotomy between the bedroom as a space of recluse versus that of discomfort inspired the garment to investigate this long-term relationship. As a wearable garment, my work is an exploration in reconciliation and articulates many internal conflicts I feel when carrying the burden and weight of ancestral heritage and tradition.
My piece takes the form of a bulletproof vest, quilted with pockets of sand and made from the material of my mother’s $100 doona from 1975. A conscious choice was made not to wash any stains and convey the material and physical sense of time embodied in my work, as nearly half a century of history were embedded in those fibres. Military uniforms such as the ‘gambeson’, ‘aketon’ and from conventional sand bags, are some of the references reflecting back to my grandmothers’ arrival in Australia from war-torn Europe and the journey both she and her doona took from Estonia to arrive here in 1950. As a form of comfort, security and protection from the elements and perhaps as a reminder of a northern home she once knew, the doona came to symbolise for myself an unecessary burden and anachronism of cultural mistranslation, as well as that of loss and cultural baggage*
*literal and metaphorical baggage
Cultural baggage whilst implying notions of burden and question individual agency, can be confronted and challenged and I found relief through the process of externalising these anxieties through this work and by engaging with my family through conversations I’d never think to have, particularly regarding the politics of doonas. I find the doona now acts as an extended metaphor for home and comfort, the need for safety and warmth, protected covering, while initatilly an inconvenience some- times things you carry knowingly without qualm. While a sense of vulnerability remains a resilience emerges, the opening up and reconstructing has allowed for new forms to take and create from destruction,
Personally, initial anxieties and frustrations have evolved to that of nurturing, protection and comfort, with the weight acting as both barrier between the inside and outside and that of community and togetherness. To have realised my work through the support and active contributions of my family assisted in breaking down the negative associations I may have initially held.
Sandbag performance piece, photo by Liam Black