Artists notes on 2006 works:
a. Care labels (taking the humble care labels, these uncelebrated female functions which generally go unnoticed and taken for granted. Washing-Up symbols are small and insignificant and many bypass them without a second thought. By turning the care labels into five 3m banners and adding subliminal information we question the visual language they offer to the viewer. Added insights to participate, interpret, construct and deconstruct their own ‘myth’ of washing-up. Reminding the viewer on many unresolved and ongoing issues of women’s role, stereotype, gender, discrimination, special treatment Washing up symbols and text manifest in the entire compositions. The visual language in these works is employed via the 5 banners touching on issues of women’s role (through years of being brain-WASHED), stereotyping, gender, discrimination, special treatment etc. The added words on the banners act like voices in one’s head and sometimes clichés one hears in everyday mundane living. With playful humor and self-sarcasm the proposal questions women’s role to issues of “caring”, “washing” and final “catharsis”.
The proposal consists of 5 banners (80x3.60m) printed on silk and a 7min loop film. The banners are taken from the “Care labels” that appear on all garments. We have modified them in an attempt to provoke thought. “God is in the Detail”, “Sit and collect dust”, “Understand intuitively” are examples of the way we have modified the labels in order to question, using the established stereotype humble “care labels”. We take for granted these Washing Up symbols as small and insignificant and many bypass them without a second thought. Yet they bring into question the visual language and can offer the viewer an added insight to participate, interpret, construct and deconstruct it’s own ‘myth’. Our attempt is to deconstruct the language of Caring, extract meaning and construct it back in our own individual way.
b. Role-play products that promote equality. A detergent box which has also the function of a toy washing machine for boys only. Another reminder that equality starts from an early age and at home.
c. Film: Hurting the Washing Machine.
Two ladies, with a full dose of irony and humility, label themselves as the “Washing Up Ladies” submit the project as an analysis of messages and hidden meanings…
On a concrete floor with a faded painted flower pattern inspired by the sixties “make love not war” a white ordinary washing machine is placed in the centre of the screen. Two faceless long-haired ‘contemporary’ women (a fair and a dark haired) appear on either side and proceed to violently hurt the washing-machine. Vandalism and Flowing Hair. Vandalism and flowing hair. Why would two young women want to hurt a washing machine? A cliché question perhaps, with an easy yet still viable post-feminist answer. Another reminder. The film may be projected on the Care Label banner. … showing a dichotomy of women’s role and perception of today.
This exhibition is dedicated to all the men who do the washing-up.
