Category: Home
Genevieve’s Traveling Transformation Box
Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.
Genevieve Smith, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK and Barbara Earl Thomas, ARTIST
I shut the door on that house where I’d lived for 30 years. I never looked back. I can live anywhere.
Maybe it wasn’t exactly like that but that’s what I think I heard her say. From the Amazon to the city, one thing remains, Genevieve is constant, solid and clear putting on and taking off whatever the season calls for, but inside she remains the spring of her own life force, Genevieve.
Gen’s selected quote:
“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.” – Oscar Wilde
Hommmmm
Bed
Gato Kaca’s House
Our House, Our Home
I am sure that you would be attracted by the beautiful landscape of the Vietnamese countryside. The lush, expansive fields spread wide and the rivers flow gently into the silent sunset.
There is one thing that is so much a part of our lives…the thatch-roofed cottage. No matter where we live, we conjure up images of our cottages when we get homesick. They are remnants left behind by our ancestors from a long time ago. They are features of natural beauty of the Vietnamese countryside. Do you know that although they are made of simple, natural materials such as different types of bamboo and palm leaves, they have covered us during rainy and sunny seasons. Some of the houses are built on stilts to protect us against floods and the attack of the wild animals in the night.
Seeing is believing, so we hope that you will come to my country, if only once to see the cottages. You will love them as we do.
Place Hotel
Awareness goes back and forth between the reception of the piece of fake chocolate and the reception of the model of a seemingly dislocated house.
Question: Would you possibly, lost in thought, make little balls out of the wrapping paper of the chocolate that you have just eaten and/or ever tried to penetrate the deeper meaning of the many ways of reoccurring walls?
Kristine’s Hope Chest
The central character in this visual story is the Hope Chest. I play a secondary role and I am represented here by the paper mache figure with the hole in her soul and an exposed heart. The setting “Life” is a jigsaw puzzle piece cut from a chess board.
The first things to be taken out of the chest are my sketchbook and pencil. There are three other items on the board and they symbolize external influences that always shadow my moves.
The contents of the chest are: two teddy bears, a doll, a key, a warm knitted blanket, a couple of books, paintings (my work and that of others), pencils, a tin angel and bits of coloured wire. All these items are needed by this nest builder to turn a room or apartment into HOME.
The colourful tin angel was given by a friend, here it means friendships and friends who are sometimes angels.
The colourful curly corkscrew bits of wire are the wonder and amazement that I carry around with me.
On the inside of the lid is a rejection notice from the New Yorker Magazine, and a letter written by my granny when she was 65. She lived and died in Latvia. She learned enough English to cobble together a now cherished letter to her 10 year old granddaughter.
I write a lot of letters and the stamps are the decals from my travels by mail.
Untitled # 1
My love for boxes goes way back in time…It was triggered in me as a child when I was enchanted by all the silken colors, embroidery and sweets that came out of my grandmother’s old wooden box. And at that time, we lived in a yet bigger stone box that reeked of lemon and jasmine flowers. The color of its cover was interchangeable, ranging between bright sky blue to a shade of azure and it seemed as if it were decorated with stars. But there was always someone who broke my boxes that contained me and I them…
The Bridal Chest
Sanduq Al-Saysum is a type of chest which used to be carved by craftsmen in the Holy City of Makkah (Mecca) from hard wood and decorated with pierced brass. Traditionally, these were one of the prized possessions of a bride which she brought with her to her new home. Being large and very heavy, they were used as safes. Inside were kept valuables and family heirlooms. Even though few now live in the traditional homes, Saysum chests are still to be found in many modern homes.
My Little Room, My Heart
The Pride of a Woman
African Woman
Leaving Home
from the time my soft head crowned
through the red hole
and my mother’s spent muscles squeezed me
out of the watery place,
i began leaving home.
the empty tunnel that led me
from my first home
closed up and healed.
as i grew, i sloughed off years
like discarded snakeskin.
she saved the skins.
she wears them around memory’s neck,
to mark time to the cadence of
an ancient song
her mother’s mother’s mother once sang.
Constraints Faced by Contemporary Women
This work seeks to explore and express the constraints faced by contemporary women who live in public housing apartments–also known as Housing Development Board (HDB) flats–in Singapore. About 86% of Singaporeans are housed in these HDB flats. Like the vast majority, I too live in a HDB flat and one of the personal constraints that I face is the lack of physical space. This inspires me to conceptualize the given wooden box as a block of HDB flats with many dwellers within. Each of the niches in the box represents a female dweller. The different constraints faced, ranging from physical, emotional, mental, and social to religious realms, are reflected in the interior decoration of the units and the contents of the ampoules. Women from different phases in life–teenagers, singles, married with and without children, and retirees–are invited to participate in a survey, and their views are expressed collaboratively in this box.
Untitled
House Cleaning
We clean our house every day and throw the useless things away. But often our minds for years get filled with foolish thoughts and fears.
The Women's Voices: Jennifer Barton from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.