My practice revolves around exploring the structural exploitation of the female body through the lens of domesticity as a complex economic and political institution. While there are many avenues through which this paradigm can be observed, I have taken a particular interest in the physicality of domestic labor, conceptualized both as a system fundamental to humanity’s perseverance and as a process designed to isolate women within the private sphere.

 

 I explore these ideas through a material practice that is interested in the relationship between fiber and common industrial materials such as wood, concrete, and metal. Not only has fiber historically been categorized as “women’s work,” but its physically repetitive means of fabrication are closely associated with the alienation produced through the performance of tedious household tasks. Furthermore, fiber is typically assumed to be an entirely amorphous medium—seen as soft, fragile, and easily manipulated. Interrogating these assumptions lies at the core of my material practice—compelling me to explore the boundaries of fiber’s overlooked, yet significant, structural potential. Over the past year, I have been developing a 3-dimensional weaving process, which has allowed me to build structures entirely out of yarn, such as the ones in my installation “Uncompensated,” which resemble wire cages. As such, I am interested in the interaction between fiber and industrial materials, and how through alternative fabrication methodologies the mediums can visually and performatively assume each other’s identities. In my piece “Quilt,” for example, I wrap panels of concrete rubble in mohair, making the material appear unusually soft, delicate, and quiet. 

 

My work is constructed through systematized production processes designed to mimic the mechanics of domestic labor, as a means of understanding how this institution acts upon the body. For example, my sculpture “Hit” was constructed by cutting a sheet of steel into thin strips before bending each one into equivalent rectangular forms. Next, I hammered each piece out, as to distort and texturize the steel. I then closed most of the forms by welding their ends together, intentionally leaving a couple units unjoined. These pieces were then laid out, offset and overlapping slightly, in a vertical line and each intersecting point was welded together. For greater security, I wrapped the welds in yarn along with the rods in the work’s pipe-like hanging apparatus. The process took nearly a month of dedicated work and the piece spanned over 10 ft. upon completion. My hand was so sore from manually hammering approximately 80 ft of steel that I could not make a fist for over a week. In my practice, such processes exist as performance aimed at producing objects that negotiate the alienation, invisibility, and impossibility of domestic labor.