Artist from Japan
My mother, 82 years old, has lived in Japan, doing housework for her family for 60 years.
No retirement, no weekend. That’s very common for Japanese women of that generation. Her family feels at ease thanks to her contribution. She is like a comfortable sofa for her family but she doesn’t have her own chair.
I would like to offer her a comfortable cushion, hoping she can take a rest sometimes.
I decorated it in pink because she loves to go out dressing herself up.
Artist from USA
I am an ABC, an American Born Chinese; one woman with two cultures and three words that hold my life together: Faith, Hope and Love. The secret that holds my life together is in the box… and that is the radiance of Christ.
Faith – in Christ
Hope – in His future for me and my family
Love – in my heart for my family
my friends
my two countries
and my life in Him
Under His love, I have “new life.” The butterfly represents my life in Him. I’ve chosen this fabric, not just because it was left over from my dining room chairs (up-cycling) but also, because fabrics and interiors have been a big part of my life and career here in Taiwan for over 36 years.
My deepest truth is: Faith, hope and love in the Lord has guided and blessed my life in ways I could never have imagined or dreamt of.
Deep and sound asleep in the dark night.
Covered with the colours of black, red, and gold of security.
Mother said, “It’s a guarantee. Sleep. Sleep. adorable little baby.”
Sailing, sweet sleep little piggy
Even inside the dark box
Safe and sound asleep in the dream with guarantee of smiling
Sweet sleep
With beauty and good health guarantee.
Artist from USA
A cozy and happy place, this Love Seat. Challenging the traditional appearance of your typical living room chair, fireworks and “power red” fabric make for a bold, yet celebratory, place to sit.
The inconsistent pattern mimics the reality of our own inconsistent lives – as women and people – but appearing upon a strong piece of furniture reminds us we are still safe and stable. Individual black and white buttons remind us that everyone, regardless of color, is invited and welcome, while a single ruffle-edged pillow adds a touch of “feminine”.
Thank You!
Artist from India
The box represents the oceans and earth, embellished with the symbol Om; this is the sound of our breath or Pranava. Inside, gold dust is the precious earth we must cherish, upon which Natraj, the Lord of Dance, dances the dance of life. On the lid, is Hukam हुकम.
I seek the blessings of the Tibetan prayer flags, the vibrational frequency of Om, and the sheer liberation of Hukum (surrender) to continue this dance with intention and purpose. The Tibetan flags carry our prayers via the wind to get them answered. The flags represent the five elements. White flags symbolize clouds, red for fire, green for water, yellow for earth, and blue for the sky. The mantras spread positive energy wherever they are.
Om- The sacred syllable
Mani- Jewel
Padme- Lotus
Hum- Spirit of enlightenment
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, CONGRESSWOMAN FROM CALIFORNIA and Laura Deem, ARTIST
Anna Eshoo’s life experiences have helped to shape her into the person she is today and the way that she represents her constituents in Congress. Her role as a parent, daughter, wife, student, teacher, woman, caretaker and friend have all come into play.
The handwritten slips of paper contain Anna’s private thoughts, memories and experiences. These personal topics feed into a “public table”. This public table is a communal meeting place that houses issues, projects and policies with which Anna Eshoo is involved as a Congresswoman.
The objects represent both the private and public world. Combined they weave together an individual narrative of the many hats that we wear, the experiences that accompany them, and the ones we chose to share with the rest of the world.
Children Beyond Borders. VSA Arts.
My box celebrates the beauty of women. The jewelry box, a classic symbol of femininity, is elegant and beautiful as is the women rising out of it. She is transparent as air and looking at her, you see your beautiful self reflected in the mirror. A universal woman, she is not confined to the box, but rising out of it. She and the mirror remind us that no matter who we are, our age, race, color, size, economic standing or physical ability, we are all beautiful.
When I received the box I thought, “Why me? I’m not an artist”, but the box itself intrigued me. I loved its fragrance, its smooth lines and the fact that it could hold my secrets or be open with the story I wanted to tell. Almost immediately, the box became a train for me.
Growing up in Denmark I was very familiar with fairy tales, and I thought the train would become part of my own fairy tale. But as I worked on the train, it took on the intensity of the American children’s book, The Little Engine That Could.
I came to the United States when I was twenty-one years old with the dream in my heart that I could start my life over again. And I could. And I did. I am a wife to a wonderful husband, I have two beautiful grown children who love me. After years as a psychotherapist and consultant, I decided to become a toffee maker. It gives me great joy to create something sweet that brings joy to so many people.
After the train was finished I was on board as The Queen of Toffee, waving to the crowd. I was right back in my Danish fairy tale where I had started out, and I think I’ll stay there.
The box is covered in a black and white check cloth which together with the red thread gives us the following: red, white and black, together with a Chinese coin as used in balinese traditions.
The significance is:
The cloth covering the box is a symbol of this world in which there are always two opposites, for example: day/night; good/evil; rich/poor; etc.
The round coin with a hole signifies that life is never ending and the world is always turning.
The three colours represent the three great Gods called “have the meaning: dengan adanya TRI MURTI. Each of these three Gods have their own characteristics, which are:
– Dewa Brahma is represented by fire which is a creative force. Everything in nature is represented by the red colour.
– Dewa Wisnu the God of water, protects the contents of our natural world and His colour is black
– Dewa Siwa, the Wind, is the Destroyer, whose colour is white.
The central focus is a very special stone heart found on the Pacific coast at the equator. It has an uncommon green color. a heart with many scars. Once it was split, but love was able to hold it together and unify what had been separated.
Sorrow leaves wounds; joy brings peace.
This heart has found its peace.
Its wounds have healed.
The purpose of life was fulfilled; the eternal cycle of birth to life and death to a new life.
This heart has been embalmed; first if has been cleaned from all perishables.
The nucleus remained, one with the nature.
For women all over the world and over all times it might be a symbol for love;
isn’t the woman love’s keeper?
Love is immortal.
Faith and hope in the victory of love might be the symbol of humankind in the next millennium.
NOTE: This embalmed heart has been wrapped with golden ribbons, placed on a plate of slate from the Andes, and bedded in a stone sarcophagus. The feather of a white swan symbolizes the purity of the heart. As grave goods, there are two sealed papyrus rolls perpetuating the heart’s qualities. This project contains symbols from four different continents (America, Asia, Europe, Africa).
Borders are changing lines on our world’s map that demarcate culture, land, time, history, ethnicity. These are intellectual separations, but the older physical lines of division are also lines of connection- the oceans that separate us, join us. Water is the vehicle for life- our food, our bodies, our planet. Women share the experience of our body’s potential to transmit new life. Our female bodies are both the source of our common oppression and transcendence. Break Water recalls the moment that proceeds birth. The image is simultaneously bound and released, evoking change, possibility, destruction, hope. I have included materials from previous works; a Xerox transfer image of a rope sculpture I made across a rotten East River pier in New York City, and two eggs which I collected in Brazil during a women’s collaborative show. These are symbolic “births” of new ideas and images that women artists are collectively making to Break Water and change the marks that divide us.
Black Box- Hidden Wisdom, what we know and have forgotten
Black Stone- For the Great Black Magma Mother
Opening Book- History of Women’s Mysteries, linked one to another, through our Blood, through Time.
Images are not designed to explain, but to expand awareness.
My aim was to transform the cold sterile box, by covering it and filling it with love.
On the outside: What could be richer and warmer than a mothers love for her new baby?
On the inside: What could be lighter and brighter than the spiritual love awakened at time of birth?
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Barbro Sachs-Osher, CONSUL GENERAL OF SWEDEN IN SAN FRANCISCO, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD FOR THE BERNARD OSHER FOUNDATION and Ulla de Larios, ARTIST
This box honors Barbro Sachs-Osher whose generosity goes beyond bounds and borders.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Dolores Huerta, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, LABOR LEADER AND CO-FOUNDER OF UNITED FARM WORKERS
Grace Elizabeth Davis, WRITER, MOTHER AND MARATHON RUNNER
These trophies are awards to the plights that we face as women.
Dolores Huerta wanted to help her students who came to class barefoot and hungry. Through her community work she co-founded the United Farm Workers Union. At 76 years old she continues to lecture and lobby for the UFW, a model used by global labor unions as a testimony to the rights of workers.
Grace Davis, writer/runner/mother, known for “Katrina Relief” brought aid to the hurricane victims of New Orleans, the first to use blogging as a medium in disaster relief.
In our endeavors, our lives can be in danger, our pasts can haunt us, our vulnerabilities can be exposed.
Unselfishly, women strive to be all things to everyone; we endure the odds guided by our passion to care for our world families.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Grace Elizabeth Davis, WRITER, MOTHER AND MARATHON RUNNER and Terry Acebo Davis, ARTIST
These trophies are awards to the plights that we face as women.
Grace Davis, writer/runner/mother, known for “Katrina Relief” brought aid to the hurricane victims of New Orleans, the first to use blogging as a medium in disaster relief.
In our endeavors, our lives can be in danger, our pasts can haunt us, our vulnerabilities can be exposed.
Unselfishly, women strive to be all things to everyone; we endure the odds guided by our passion to care for our world families.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Dolores Huerta, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, LABOR LEADER AND CO-FOUNDER OF UNITED FARM WORKERS and Terry Acebo Davis, ARTIST
These trophies are awards to the plights that we face as women.
Dolores Huerta wanted to help her students who came to class barefoot and hungry. Through her community work she co-founded the United Farm Workers Union. At 76 years old she continues to lecture and lobby for the UFW, a model used by global labor unions as a testimony to the rights of workers.
In our endeavors, our lives can be in danger, our pasts can haunt us, our vulnerabilities can be exposed.
Unselfishly, women strive to be all things to everyone; we endure the odds guided by our passion to care for our world families.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Julie Su, Esq., LITIGATION DIRECTOR, ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LEGAL CENTER, RECIPIENT OF THE MACARTHUR GENIUS GRANT and Nancy White, ARTIST
Too often, we fail to think about where the clothes we wear actually come from. Clothes, like this necklace, are worn, but they are also made—made of fabric sewn together by human beings. Women workers are the faces behind the garments we wear, hidden as in this locket, invisible, yet upon closer examination, resilient, strong, able to rise up against exploitation and sweatshop conditions to raise one voice, in many languages, for justice.
Croash Patrick
Time to talk to learn memories from the past
Pick up after the loss of some of my family
Hope in peace beneath the wings and carry me away from strife
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
TOMIKO FRASER, MAYBELLINE SPOKESPERSON/ACTRESS
Tomiko Fraser has benefitted greatly in her life from mentoring and, in return, wishes to nurture and empower other women. An exuberant, playful woman, she has been able to find her way and break free of the confines of others’ expectations.
In appreciation of Faith Ringgold and her painted story quilt “Sunflower Quilting Bee of Arles” (1991) and the women depicted within.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
JANET LEAHY, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF “BOSTON LEGAL” TELEVISION SHOW
1 small wooden box
5 Peruvian worry dolls
1 drill
800 holes
1 can black spray paint
countless threads
1 very small crochet hook
one artist
one executive television producer
one collaboration
one phone call
many many emails
one new friendship
Threading Water honors women, mothers, daughters, friends, workers, wives who feel pulled in all directions while trying to stay afloat.
Coast US feminist artists, revisited by key artists of the 1990’s. Exploration of vulval imageries allows me to consider female desire, seduction and discipline, and the role-liquidity of queer sexual play.
The metaphorical cultural veil of a socially/culturally formed feminine is materialized in my use of empty but sexually encoded garments (the little black velvet dress. lingerie, leather, corsetry, gloves) to stand in for the female body. A self-consciously feminist erotic is proposed, carefully controlled through allusion to the actual body, through textual ‘cunning lingua’, through acknowledgment of the seductive territories of sado-masochism, fetishism, voyeurism and exhibitionism, and through awareness of the potentially mulitiplicitous desirous nature of the gaze.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
NANCY SODERBERG, FORMER SENIOR FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR TO CLINTON, FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS
My impression of Nancy is a study in contrasts: powerful authority figure/pretty, blonde hair, soft features. Woman, wife, stepmother/facing the horror of war on a daily basis.
But a singular vision: the world can change, war can be contained.
So, we have a soft, hand-stitched pillow – symbol of domesticity, a womanly art. In the colors of the UN flag, the ultimate multilateral institution, and round, like the diplomatic Round Table. A locked, but fragile glass box, its contents a weapon of powerful but intimate destruction: an M67 Fragmentation hand grenade. And the key tucked safely away in a pocket of the UN pillow.
This box symbolizes the entrapment of the domestic sphere. The witness of the box symbolizes the innocence and naiveté of women in the past. The sewing kit placed in the box makes reference to contemporary women artists of today who have used old skills from the domestic sphere and given them new life.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Rita Ryder, PRESIDENT OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, YWCA
Our sculpture represents the day-to-day work of the YWCA, providing hope and opportunity to women and families. Our ceramic hands represent our entire, diverse community joining together to help women and families overcome critical issues that undermine their lives: homelessness, poverty, domestic violence and unemployment.
Working together, we move women and families forward—breaking the cycle of poverty and hopelessness, and improving the quality of their lives.
My grandmother’s sewing box, a gift from her mother, handed down to me by my mother, is my inspiration for Women beyond borders. I have made a tiny sarcophagus of pins, cotton and frayed red velvet – to symbolize thousands of droplets of blood from pin-pricked fingers – all embedded in the wax of candles burned into the night, lighting women’s often unappreciated work of skill, toil and pleasure.
We are born into an intimate relationship of close bodily contact with our mothers. Touch is so basic, the mother of all senses that we tend to take it for granted. Without our noticing it, we have gradually become less and less tactile, more and more distant and physical untouchability has been accompanied by emotional remoteness.
The most tactile receptor on our body is the skin, and with force can be torn to shreds like our emotions. The symbol and carrier of life is the egg, characteristically feminine and fragile. The shell of an egg appears hard, tough skinned, breading through to the secondary layer its protective skin, we find it thin and fragile.
Material alone can define work, if perception is directed first to the material, the ideas in the work are often undervalued and the message becomes secondary to the medium. Hemming in the box in fabricated egg I have reinforced my ideals.
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Barbara Boxer, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA and Barbara Leventhal-Stern
The first words I associate with Senator Barbara Boxer are passion and courage. In my mind, I saw an image of a boat that “keeps on course”.
Because the exhibition serves to inspire young women who could be faced with adversity or hard decisions, I inserted excerpts from our email dialogue so they could read about the sources of her commitment themselves.
Thanks to Senator Boxer, and Michael and Adrienne, her talented staff.
In the pine box I placed a soap from the collection of ‘Human Body Smell’ soaps. Over the box and the soap in it I pulled the inside out turned sock with some feathers sewed on it. Both things I got in my studio where at the same time I work as a woman and live as a bird.
USA / UK Artist.
The bag is packed
A wonderful trip
A million miles
Back and forth
I am English
I am American?
I am in half
Never completely at home
A heart, a soul, a life
Chosen and divided
USA / UK Artist.
Mother Earth
Deep within her there is life.
She is encircled by the web of life.
It is no mistake that earth is a “she”
for all that grows does so because of her.
We are the children of this mother.
We are all connected to the earth and one another
through this mystical experience we call life.
This traditional Balkan folk dance slipper carries a box holding the grief and terror of deportation and internment as well as hope for endurance and the end of all exiles- physical, political, cultural and spiritual.
Peace Offering is about seeing the angelic possibilities in our existence on the Earth, despite all adversity. It is so easy to forget that goodness is as real as horror when we are in the midst of difficulties. I hope that my offering to the Women Beyond Borders project will serve as a beacon to remind us of the beauty and light that is always within our reach.
If I shut the lid tight, can anyone know for sure what it is in the box? The outside of the box is decorated attractively as a person intentionally embellishes their appearance to conceal their inner life. The ancient Vietnamese had a saying, “It is easy to know a man from his appearance, but difficult to recognize his thinking.”
This box, created by Magdalena Pederin, is actually the second box to bear its name. The original box was an interactive work that reacted to voices and other sounds around it with green and red LED diodes. The original box was unfortunately stolen, but when asked about her opinion on the situation Magdalena responded calmly. She said that the individual who took the work considered it a good one. She then suggested creating a new version of the box out of plexiglass, which became the box featured here.
Top: the 3 jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings) and the Sangha (spiritual community)
Color: yellow for the Lama’s robes
Images: lotus flower, 3 jewels with Bon swastika (Bon was the religion of Tibet before Buddhism), fish, vase with flowers
Inside the Box: barley
As an artist, arts educator and mother of two daughters, I continually open small doors. Doors can be understood as metaphors for insights into life, as they shed light on the personal, social and political issues that impact our everyday lives. As we navigate through these doors we find a continuous reconstruction of our own identities. The dialogue within the box, and its door, conjures associations concerning questions of history and healing. Gauze, from my grandmother’s tombstone, is soaked in beeswax. It covers the wool felt, which surrounds a vessel housing the fragments of body tissue.
mary daley’s gyn/cology and wickedary
germaine greer’s the obstacle race
zora neale hurston’s their eyes were watching god
ruth klüger’s weiter leben: eine jugend
toni morrison’s playing in the dark
grace paley’s 3 short stories
adrianne rich’s of woman born
alice walker’s in search of our mother’s gardens
Blue skies, sun rises, sun sets.
Very quickly, you leave us
Like a bow leaving it’s arrow.
We stay. It’s good to stay.
Our future is good.
Top: flower
Images: Knot of eternity, eight-petaled flower, Bon swastika, 3 jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings) and the Sangha (spiritual community), sun, moon, flowers
Inside the Box: Kata (white scarf used as offering to Lamas or enlightened people)
Text: World Peace
Blue sky, sun rises, sun sets.
Very quickly, you leave us
Like a bow leaving it’s arrow.
We stay. It’s good to stay.
Our future is good.
This project is dedicated to my father. My dad has been a friend to me since I was young. Being a traditional Asian man, he has never made me feel inferior for being female. In fact, he gave me the space to develop my potential as a person. This work allows me to express my reflections on my dad’s failing health. Initially, I wanted to portray the notion of dying, but through prayers and time spent with him, I realized that even though his days are numbered, his undying sense of humor, his child-likeness, and his concern and love for the well-being of his loved ones have never diminished. Through his dying, I gradually learn to live; not to escape but to be present and available to my family. The red paper signifies the vibrancy of life which my father shares with me. In a symbolic gesture, visitors are encouraged to touch the paper and get their fingers tainted and red.
Friends are the flowers in the garden of life. My flower gardens bring much pleasure to myself as well as many others. Through gardening and art, I have made many friends who enrich my life. Friends in far-reaching places oftentimes come to mind. I like to think of them as flowers given to me in my garden of life. True blessings.
It is my hope that my box will convey to others how important friends are. May my little traveling garden bring a smile to the viewer, along with a reminder of someone special—a flower placed in their garden of life.
This project is based primarily on my interaction with family members – my mother and sisters. I have chosen to engage in this community and my interaction with them started more than twenty years ago. All of them now are working females, already spending half their lives working, financing their flats, maintaining households, and taking care of children and husbands. Growing up in such an environment has prompted me to have many thoughts. As an artist and having the privilege to express, I included this engagement in my artwork to reflect and to question the roles of women in our modern society today.
I work with containers because they make me happy. Each piece I create becomes a container of conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings: a nest, a womb, a secret, a surprise or a giggle. And always, a feeling of being in touch with my female ancestral beginnings.
My containers contain “me”. Being a wife, mother and “Nana” have been the most important things in my life. My baskets honor and celebrate the family. I use words and images of women and children because I want my basket/vessel to have content…to say something. I want to validate the importance of the family and the values and morals it nurtures. My vessels are autobiographical and are the scrapbooks of my life.
Throughout history women have found creative time in their lives to make baskets. Knotless netting, the technique I use to cover the gourds and molded forms, is an ancient, tedious, continuous thread technique that is used for nets, baskets and button holes and is symbolic of women’s work in the home.
My artistic endeavors dwell on questioning the ideal body portrayed by popular culture, by way of designing and making prosthetic garments that allow small people to be what they are not; awkwardly tall, beer-gutted, seat-spillers and generally voluminous. The combination of humor, formal relationships and social commentary are also mixed in most of my site-specific installations.
I’m three years old. I made a five-decker bed because I want my family to be together. My papa works in Jakarta four days a week and I miss him. I also love double-decker beds but papa said it is too dangerous for children my age. A five-decker bed will be nice–everybody can sleep together and Babybathtub (my doll) can have her own bed. I wanted to have a five-decker bed and mama helped me saw the box. Papa is very old, his bed has many beads–my hands get tired and Nadene che che helped me with the sticking. My bed has three beads because I am three years old and Babybathtub is only two.
Pat Chen, Regina Law’s mother
Coca-Cola Box Project.
The idea for our box originated from a website that the Coca-Cola company published called Spill It. Contained within the site were thousands of messages by people all around the world who just wanted to spill their minds and share with others. The box, covered with small pieces of aluminum Coca-Cola cans found in trash cans around the campus, is overflowing with little scrolls of personalized messages from whoever wanted to contribute.
…woman’s sexuality, as spectator, must undergo a constant process of transformation. She must take, as if she were a man, the phallic power of the gaze, at a woman who would attract that gaze, in order to be that woman…
An attempt at examining issues pertaining to female sexuality, sensuality, cultural attitudes and ideas are my main concerns, which include the engagement and celebration of the body.
…a journey, which is both a conscious and subconscious process, through my body prints and food spices installations. These are born out of trans-cultural experiences and transcend apparent boundaries such as the celebrations of the human form and sexuality and sensuality. Whether or not femininity results in an unconscious symbolism, I choose to work with components of a visual vocabulary to achieve works in personal content that can be read by a larger audience.
I still have to question every assumption, every reaction I have, as a result of being culturally conditioned. The expression of my sensibilities and concerns is not a politicized feminism but more of a psychic bonding to my femaleness, Amen.
This piece of work explores the notion of restriction and objectification by juxtaposing an old-time practice of foot binding with fashionable high heeled shoes. Pain, in both historical and contemporary context, is symbolized by the shrouded shoe. Times may have changed, but certain perceptions of women remain deeply entrenched. In the past, women were obliged to have their feet bound in order to be considered beautiful and desirable by men. Having small feet was a symbol of stature and gentility. Hence, women’s feet were forcibly bound to fit into dainty, three-inch long shoes. Today, women subject themselves to the pain and discomfort of three-inch (or more!) high shoes to enhance their feminine appeal. Yet, hidden behind the glossy look is this sense of inadequacy and the desire to be looked at. Are we now considered willing participants of a game of restrictive beauty, to the point of disregarding the possible hazards by wearing heels?
This collaborative project focuses on the network of relationships which support the mother as she experiences changes in Self identity within the frame of Motherhood. The changing perceptions of Self, whilst universal in Motherhood, differs significantly from person to person. This project involves each member of my personal support group of expatriate mothers in Singapore, expressing their experiences of motherhood in a “foreign” environment. Through the box, I sought to express my personal experience on a theoretical basis, placed in the context of my support network. Thereby the work seeks to reveal the differing experiences and changes in the perception of self, as well as the importance of a transient support network.
Teenager Boxes, Culver City High School, Grade 12.
All I want is not to feel like this every second of my life.
Clothe your body,
Adorn your soul.
Love oneself like
You would another.
Step out from the shadows
Be unashamed of what you are,
Pull back those curtains
and feel complete…
This box of boundaries and borders of seams and skin-colored patterns uses the images produced to explore the possibilities of connection. By using these borders between colors of skin as a connection instead of a boundary of separation, it creates a quilt-like or map-like pattern. The connection of the visual image similar to a map and the intellectual understanding of different ethnicities throughout the world attempts to introduce the possibility of these coming together beautifully without attempting uniformity.
This cloth covering, this skin is also superficial. This cloth is synthetic and covers the box almost completely, except for one run in the stocking and one square wall inside the box. These show the natural wood underneath this cloth skin, the same wood each woman began her box with.
The images produced from this quilting of panty-hose is almost primitive and yet the material is a symbol of progressive, fashionable women. The appearance of smooth, uniformly colored legs has been considered beautiful in Western Europe and America for some time now. This aspect introduces the difference in perspectives of beauty.
Sewing with my hair weaved in the traditional concept of long hair as beautiful and feminine. This image of women’s long hair is in many regions and reminds me of the many places I find hair I have shed, in the bed, in the shower, on my clothes, on the floor. Historically in some areas women used to sew with horse hair. The concept of women’s hair connecting many regions twists the projection of beauty into a powerful relationship where the object that was used as a thing to look at, now fulfills the position of bridging the boundaries, of connecting the borders.
The process of sewing this box reminded me of the women throughout the world who sew for their families and communities. They create to keep people clothed and warm. The process is time consuming and requires patience and care. The needles remain hanging from the box by hair and thread because we are still in the process of sewing our borders and recognizing our differences and using these to create a new understanding, a new connection of women artists around the world.
Is there no greater suffering than “An American Girl, Shopping For A Husband”? In her single days, she would cry and cry over lost loves, covet the sacred purchases of keepsakes in hope for love, and dream endlessly for the one– a final purchase of the dream guy and live happily ever after.
Medium: The box, Ukranian egg dyes, silver and gold spray paint, floral wire, embroidery thread, wood ball, buttons and dominos, netting, yarn, plastic shopping bags, things girls buy, one groomsman cut in half, newspaper clipping, wire, crotchet needle, Modge Podge and Tacky glue.
The little book attached, describes the origin of the fabric (where it was woven and printed), its purpose (as far as it could be tracked down) and most important the donor. The donors are all women who I have got to know in Singapore (except my mother who has visited me in Singapore for 4 months). The box might be seen as synonym for the female body (or at least part of it), all those pieces of different fabric stand for the colorful, multi-layered women personalities. The chain at which the little book is attached has a meaning too: It stands for all women who have not freed themselves from a world which is still very much male-dominated.
When the secret mirror first opened, she was obliged to recognize the elaborate and multiform disguises behind which oneness lies.
USA/Czech Republic
My sister died before I was a little girl.
She was put in a gas chamber in a
concentration camp.
My daddy was so sad he couldn’t stop
them so he made another little girl right
away so he could forget about Ritta and
be happy again
Only this was not ok with G-d. G-d
thought that this was too fast so he
played a trick on Daddy. He took
Ritta’s soul, which was still very upset
from being starved and gassed and
burned and sent it back to Earth.
Normally a soul would be allowed to
float around out there for a couple
hundred years or more to calm down
after doing Life. So it was shocking for
Ritta’s soul to come back too quickly
and-this was the mean part-to be
stuck in Janicka’s body.
This was very hard for me. I thought I
was supposed to smile. Everyone
wanted me to be a happy pretty little girl
so they could be happy and forget. But,
too bad looked like a bullfrog and I
could tell they thought that and were
ashamed. So no smiles. They didn’t
know about Ritta’s soul and that it took
up so much space may own little heart
didn’t have room to beat.
So along we went, poor starved gassed
and burned Ritta and what was left of
me and no one knew so I was very sad
and lonely. And poor Daddy couldn’t
forget Ritta because she was inside the
little bullfrog.
Out of the darkness, the void, the night, we are reaching for truth, for life, the light.
“As a body is to the soul and an oil to the lamp, a yantra is to the divinity.” –Kularnava Tantra (chap v, 86)
Through the mirror you constitute yourself as an object (you observe yourself from the others point of view).
A comment on a certain problem of perception, a problem which tacitly influences our ways of communicating with the world. Languages, images and other forms of representations of reality are not fully transparent tools to relate to the world. In all languages and representations, there is a displacement, or rather, distortion of the world and they are dependent upon the expectations and information we put into play in a communicative situation.
Although it is very difficult for me to think in the terms of ‘feminist’ art (or any kind of separation between the men- women activities), I can’t avoid the context of the Women Beyond Borders project. So I created the double box out of the single one. What inspired me was the fact found in the catalogue that the original wooden boxes had been constructed by a man (called Jack). Inside this wooden box I have put the soft textile box sewn by myself.
The work corresponds with the pattern of sharing the work: men build houses while women make home of them. Such a box is still staying empty, waiting for a real (probably common) issue. Besides this, I simply enjoy sewing.
REFERENCES:
Joseph Beuys: felt textile
United Colors of Benetton: bright colors, social dimension of dressing
‘Titanic,’ the movie: Jack & Rose relationship
My past works: ‘Portable Home’ project
Real beauty is hidden and then found like a box of treasures. These textiles represent women from different regions of my country. A heritage that should be preserved for our children.
The words on the box are prayers: to make good choices; be a better person – humble, patient and thankful.
What is this piece about? For me, it’s about the danger of sensuality. How we are beckoned by the flesh. How our desire can become our anguish. How a wrong decision can mean death, be it of the spirit or the body. How the need for self-destruction can be initiated in a seemingly healthy person from the hurt and pain of a relationship. Thus — the presence of the sword. Although I also see this sword as positive, perhaps a form of protection or an attribute, like that of Saint Agnes. *
The question of violence enters in here, too. This woman — in all her sensuality — is in a coffin. Why? Was she a victim of violence, of rape? Can our sensual self die under certain circumstances? Is our nudity kept hidden away in a dark, quiet place?
The veil also invokes the mysteriousness of Muslim women, their eyes being their only available sensual feature.
* (Saint Agnes was very beautiful, but she rejected all of her suitors, one of whom became angry and had her condemned to death. Since it was forbidden to execute virgins, she was first sent to a burdel. Nevertheless, no man was able to touch her. After being tortured, she was finally decapitated. She is often portrayed with a sword piercing her breast. She is the patron saint of virginal innocence.)
The box: the everyday object is used in different ways. It is taken out of its specific context in order to become an object that is artistic, cultured, of utilitarian adornment.
In this case the change is taken from a philosophical, conceptual foundation. To accept this transformation from a common, everyday object for purposes of exhibition, it is necessary to take on the challenge of new shapes and ideas, to comprehend their true structure in order to give it symbolism and a distinct visual representation: a confrontation between form and action, between reality and idea. This is to say, the object must be viewed from another angle in order to break the established canons. This shall be the philosophical stance for my work.
My subject is tears. I began with an incision between the warmth and gentleness of the wood sharply contrasted against the rigidity and coldness of the metal exterior, in order to place, in its delicate interior, a tear.
Tears are shed daily; they are commonplace and become relics when taken out of their context, just as the crusaders brought back relics from the Holy Land: pieces from the cross, from the crown of thorns, from the robe, from the nails. These amulets, upon being sacrificed, acquire properties of protection for those who hold them.
This syncretism happens in the Americas, lands which we carry deep within ourselves from the cultures of our origin and the influence of the Christian religion brought over by the Europeans.
The box, as a symbol of woman and one which will simulate a mother’s body. I will open and leave open so that my body is weightless and free. My face is protected by a condom, but not out of fear, because covered can also mean uncovered.
In my home country, Japan, there is a legend for girls that says that their prospective husbands have their little toes tied up to them with an invisible red thread. I used to believe in this legend as well. In my opinion it is wonderful to be able to believe in such a thing.
Since we’re infants, we are educated to play a role either as a woman or as man. I still remember when I used to play house-dolls with my friends and how much we enjoyed playing the mother’s role, like all the mothers of every mother. It is a simple but very pleasing memory that all women have inside. However, nowadays I often feel a victim of the male order and often wonder what can I do about it.
I was thinking of this as I was making my box and I felt like I was playing with dolls again because I was doing typical housework tasks such as sewing, washing, and ironing.
I hope you will tender my piece during the traveling exhibition as if it were our collective memory, which men will never be able to understand. And please, wash it and iron it when needed.
P.S. Do you know what? In Japanese, when we say “to get married” we use the word “to be tied up.” In the end, every princess will be tied up to their blue prince.
