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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Identity

Lettuce Revolution

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Alice Waters, OWNER, CHEZ PANISSE RESTAURANT AND CAFÉ; FOUNDER OF THE CHEZ PANISSE FOUNDATION, THE EDIBLE SCHOOLYARD PROJECT and Dianna Cohen, ARTIST

“We need a revolution, a delicious revolution, that will induce children — in a pleasurable way to think critically about what they eat.” Alice Waters

Within the Edible Schoolyard project, Alice is teaching us all by demonstration, that we are what we eat. She creates a sense of community and our interconnectedness. These are values that I hold high and attempt to eschew and embody in my work in a more formal way as compositions made up of disparate parts joined together to form a whole.

Kate’s World

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Kate McIsaac ,1ST LIEUTENANT, U.S. ARMY and Laura Klein, ARTIST

Kate McIsaac just celebrated her 30th birthday in Baqubah, Iraq. She is a 1st Lieutenant in the Army, serving in OIF IV – V at FOB Warhorse as a postal officer. Her unit is from Long Beach, California.

She is also a first-year law student at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa and will either go into criminal law or First Amendment Libel law. Libel law is near and dear to her heart.

Kate also has a degree in Journalism and worked as a journalist for several years.

Bringing all of my Life Experiences to the Public Table

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.

New Soul-Sole

As I move through this life I have…

Change has always been inevitable in these short years since I was born.  I have re-invented, moved, transformed.  Each time I fly high up in the sky, I look down imagining what will come.  When I arrive at these new places, I resole my soul and begin walking.

Emily’s Ideas

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Emily Harrison, ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER, CITY OF PALO ALTO and Renee Winick, ARTIST.

A government building is the architecture that delineates space and frames conversations.

In the confines of that structure, Emily Harrison devotes her time and boundless energy to developing new ideas and innovations.

For her, this process becomes an explosion of joy and excitement as if sparks were shooting out in an array of twists and turns, spiraling outward, and beyond.

Portrait of an Artist as a Box

A box is a metaphor for open and closed, the inside and the outside, two terms upon which alienation is founded. My work becomes at once the physical and the psychological space in which I face the alienation brought on by the play of dichotomies that hinder the search for identity and the possibility of its realization. The box becomes the self, inside-outside.  The nails are symbolic of manly attire with weapon, the nail as phallus, the nail as material nature, the nail as primitive ancestral device, and also as the piercing eye.  Finally, the wall of nails echoes the brutality of our surroundings.

Inside, the place of the jewel, the vagina: we find but broken glass in a sky-like space: My innards can be broken, my psyche raped by the conqueror, the violent, the oppressor,  but the immensity of my mind remains untouched.

Heroines

I am personally concerned with spiritual and creative identity through the abstract form. I find that creating many layers in my paintings builds a foundation or history of the statement I am trying to make. I want to obliterate as much traditional form as I can, yet still evoke images through layers of paint, glazed, and stains.

Painting, for me, can be a very lonely and difficult process. It is also exhilarating. In my personal experience I find that painting is the most powerful expression of my life and a most satisfying way to express my own humanity.

Flor de Canela

My box is an expression of myself. Now others will know who I really am.
I did not have an original box, but built a bigger one with my husband. All objects and photos are symbolic.

Letting It All Hang Out

This box is sort of a self-portrait.  It is about me, anyway.  It represents some of the things inside of me that I like, get pleasure from, are positive and good, and that I am grateful for in my life.  It’s a celebration.

 

The Shape of Silence

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Dr. Sara Bunting, SILICON VALLEY INTERNIST and Tess Sinclair, ARTIST

“We hear the rain, but not the snow. A day well lived must know the shape of silence.” –K. Nerburn

Competent. Dedicated. Compassionate. Multitasking… Exhausted.

So many women from so many different circumstances live these words. Women are tenderly caring for those in their stead, watching and vigilant for sounds of an aching heart. Dr. Sara Bunting is one such woman. And she is tired.

Reclaiming time for recreation…re-creation and solitude is the task awaiting us. Take time to know the shape of silence.

State of Grace

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.

Rewind and Understand

The theme I am using for this box is the notion of self-exploration. Society has become chaotic and volatile. One must look within and access their own position. It is only then can one figure out their meaning in the scheme of things.

The theme depicted by the box represents a journey. This incorporates the spiritual, the physical, and psychological dimensions. The function of the box serves as a medium for self-realization.

The blurred box cover represents how people are finding an inner-spirit and harmony. It is unclear and difficult to define. Once we search in between the lines– the torn lining, clarity may be achieved.

Once the box is opened, all becomes clear. Lucidity is found in the “blurred words”. The engraved message is re-written in clear legible writing. This represents the move from inner confusion to understanding.

Human beings constitute a fragmented whole. This implies an elusiveness about human nature and its expression. Without questions, where is individuality? The liberation of the “self” allows change, progress. With rigorous self examination, pieces of the “puzzle of life” penetrate the surface. The box is an example of this.

Women have access to their feelings. They are allowed to “own” them. Possession of thoughts, ideas, dreams are what this box characterizes. If we look back (rewind) we can understand why we are the way we are. The journey continues…..

 

Tomiko Fraser Revealed

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.

 

A Falcon or a Great Song

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

LEASA MAYERS, PRESIDENT, CRG EVENTS

In talking to Leasa Mayers about her life – her family, and her work promoting others in their ventures, the powerful Rainer Maria Rilke poem, “Growing Orbits” came to mind. It inspired me to transform the plain wooden box into a cradle holding a bird’s nest with eggs to honor Leasa’s endeavors; her creative spirit, her effective nurturing which helps others to take flight.

 

Threading Water

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.

 

Yoriko

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

YORIKO KISHIMOTO, VICE MAYOR, CITY OF PALO ALTO and Jen Schachter, ARTIST.

A photo of Yoriko as a small child with her parents and older brother in Shizuoka, Japan flies from the branch of one of her favorite trees, the maple, signifying her love of gardens. The trail reflects her journey from Japan and her love of travel while the mountain symbolizes her love of hiking and mountains, and her desire to “climb to a high place and see as far as I can”— hence the binoculars.

The central image is her interest in the 4 elements — earth, air, fire and water. Earth is symbolized by a clay container I made (I am a potter) and the water by blue glass that was melted in the clay container.

There are so many aspects of Yoriko’s life that are not included, but through some mysterious mental process, I have focused on these ideas and presented them in this way.
 

Woman in Bloom

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Deanna Oppenheimer, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF RETAIL BANKING, BARCLAYS BANK

Wife

Mother

Mentor

Water-skier

Senior Appointed Chief Operating Officer Barclays Bank, United Kingdom

Chair of the Board of Trustees, University of Puget Sound

“Of all my accomplishments, what I am most proud of is my children, that they are growing up to be fine individuals.”

Untitled

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Elizabeth Rice-Grossman, BUSINESSWOMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST, SUPPORTER TO THE CIRCLE OF CARE FOUNDATION and Catie O’Leary, ARTIST

Images used in these collages represent Elizabeth Rice-Grossman — her life, influences and concerns, benefitting those near her home in Ventura County.

Images are personal symbols meant to represent her life, such as:

San Francisco – map, horses

New York – stock market

Hawaii – orchids

Theater – Arts for Kids, Nutcracker

African American authors

Grossman Burn Center

Migrant farmer housing

Americare – senior care

Memory TV – Circle of Care

The past enables the present

Intimate Fragility

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.

Keeping On Course

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.

Fabricated Fame

Today’s celebrities seem to all be coming out of some celebrity machine.  Behind the glitz and glam, the expensive cars and fancy clothes, are producers and stylists that give celebrities their identities.  They all strive for the ideal image but in the process they become copies of each other.  I made my box into a gaudy, sparkly representation of fame.  I’ve carved in idealistic image of a figure into the lid of the box and created prints from it.  The prints show how celebrities are simply produced copies that are made to be this ideal.

 

Representation of a Population

Culver City Highschool. Age 12.

My box is a representation of my population, African Americans. Throughout history, my people always had something to represent. From the motherland to this present day we have represented life, struggle, triumph, and perseverance. But as we begin a new generation, what do we have to represent now? What do we have to show our future, besides being a statistic?

Outside the Box

To know who I am is the quest.
To learn lessons is the school of life
To see emotion as the road least traveled.
To find the path past mind is the road to the soul.
To see life as a continuously unfolding process
To live life to the fullest is to live in the present.
To open to humaness is to see life’s treasures
To live in the present is going outside of the box.

From: If Life is a Game, these are the Rules
The Rules for Being Human
Dr. Chérie Carter-Scott

 

Welcome to La La Land

Culver City Highschool. Grade 11.

My box represents my life and being a high school student in a modern world, which is all crazy. I titled this piece Welcome To La La Land because my nickname is Lala and I wanted to show a glimpse of my life. Well, what I wanted to say about myself was that, I am a quiet person but inside I am crazy, confused and talkative, but I keep it locked inside most of the time. Inside, I put little things that represent me and keys, which is the thing that will open the box (myself). I see finding the keys is like finding you, the key that will open you to the world. I have little things that can’t remain in the box like my creativity, self-expression and friendship. I feel that most people are like me and until you find yourself, you can’t find the key that will help you open up and allow you to be more yourself.

The monarch trapped in their expectations, reducing the imperial ruler into a mere puppet controlled by golden strings.

Radical Profiling

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Joan Takayama-Ogawa (artist) and Elaine Tajima (CEO, founder at Tajima Creative)

We live in times of war, where racial profiling threatens the freedom of Arab Americans. By transforming this wooden box into a shrine representing my family’s internment in Japanese American relocation camps, I hope that racial profiling will not happen again.

Symbols of the highest decorated American 442 Regimental Combat Unit, the luggage tags with family numbers for the Takayama and Ogawas, rotate around the box symbolically, tied with barbed wire. Along the perimeter of the black tray, a plant revered by Japanese Americans, connects with barbed wire symbolizing their incarceration. A gold crane perched on a post, represents the Hiroshima bomb.

Thirty-seven last names along the edge of the tray represent hundreds of my family members who were incarcerated during World War II, remembering freedom is fragile, and racial profiling is intolerable.

 

Shoes

“Walk a mile in my shoes”
and vice versa.
To understand someone else,
put yourself in their shoes.
Too often, women force their
feet into shoes
too small, too pointy, too high-heeled
and then stumble along
the unmarked roads ahead.
Life is a journey,
be prepared to wear
sensible shoes.

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.

Web of Complexity

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.

No Chains on My Feet

Inspired by Bob Marley’s concrete jungle. My box signifies the reality of life. Nobody is really free. There are restrictions, expectations, and guidelines on you, which don’t allow you to be free. People are fed lots of lies, been told things that sound good, just to keep them satisfied, but if you stop and really think your chains may be invisible, yet they’re present. You are never really free to be yourself. Life is captivity. The baby inside the box shows that the moment your life starts is the same point your freedom dies.

Indulgence

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.

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…

I-Eye

I/Eye is one destination of a journey, the result of dialogues with a group of close friends and family. It is a fluid look-see at the emotional, intellectual and artistic issues of life; equally, a way of looking at my art and myself. I saw the box as very personal, as the baggage or the tools, both good and bad, given to me, with which to live this life. I have set this box within a fence that is open and yet enclosed, transparent, yet opaque. It marks personal boundaries. On this fence are the eyes of friends and family sketched as we talked. Their presence is about seeing eye-to-eye, or not, having them to look out for me, helping me to look at myself with creative eyes. The box was always meant to be the most transmutable part of my project, it did change, move and let itself be affected by this interactive process. Its final form, then, is one that signifies growth – a sort of literal ‘breaking out of the box’ to explore one’s potential, whatever that may be, wherever that may lead.

 

Altar for Eve’s Chromosomes

Eve represents the first woman. I am honoring her genetic material with this mixed media sculpture. All women have descended from Eve’s chromosomes, which are the most fundamental, significant and potentially eternal part of our experience as humans.

Artistically, this work is related to a series of white wood wall sculptures I made during the late 1980’s. The objects I have added to the original box materials are symbolically related to women’s genetic and cultural heritage.

 

Today Women

Women in today’s world have various facets, she is expected to fulfill multiple roles and there exist many issues which demands her time and energy.  The 4 sides of the box depict today women various circles of concern;

Family- She has to fulfill the role of good daughter to her parents, a loving wife to her husband and of course, a caring mother to her children.  She doesn’t only need to spend quality time with each but is also expected to keep in touch with their worlds, traditions and trends. Hence, observation of traditional customs such as Chinese New Year, celebrating Valentine’s day, knowing the difference between Ash, Pikachu and Teletubbies…the list goes on.

Career- She is naturally the co-bread winner, especially in Singapore’s society. In a knowledge based economy she has to fulfill the expectations and obligations of a model employee. She is expected to be efficient, innovative, receptive to the ever changing corporate identity (mergers and acquisitions making it more exciting), requirements and culture.

Social- In between all the juggling, she keeps herself updated of the news, happenings, fashion, trends, movies, television programs (even if she has no time for them–at least she must know what’s showing!) And definitely, squeeze in time for friends, neighbors, and maybe even some charitable work.

Self-Intellectual/Spiritual/Physical- In an increasingly borderless world, life long learning is becoming the norm–continuous education, for the diploma holders–the dream is to obtain a degree.  For the degree holders, the aim is to complete an MBA, for the MBA and MSC holders–a Ph.D.? Today, women must keep in touch with the internet world–or else she would be lost in the sea of information.

Health is important too–so time is needed for exercise.  Of course, not to forget spiritual needs as well.

Reflection- Today women, to perform her roles well–is that a challenge or an expectation?  In today society, there is no other alternative, so today women must make best of whatever resource she has, develop her skills, increase her knowledge and extend her circle of influence–with the sole objective of playing her roles well.

 

Women’s Unlimited Potential

This little box reminds me of a woman in the olden day, which a woman can only do things within this little space. What is a woman identity today?  Woman is no more constrained within this space. Woman is full of wisdom and Unlimited Potential.

She can transform herself in various forms.

She can express herself just like the color in the palette.
She can express her creativity just like a tree…so full of energy.
She can transcend all her cells to enliven this society.

I’m that Woman with Unlimited Potential!

Close to the Edge

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.

Untitled

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.

My World

My box is a small square world, and part of my world is in the box. On opening My World and looking closer one sees part of my individual history. A mirrored reflection of my wedding day. It represents love, culture, and intimacy. The bottom of the box is a coffin.

 

Personal Affairs

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.

Untitled

I am wary…
I am cautious…
I am conditioned…
I have hardened…
I am protective…
because I am vulnerable.
I am sensitive…
I am emotional…
I am afraid…
Take time to understand me.
Within is my core,
my soul,
and my heart.
I will unfold…
and reveal to you…
me.

Who am I?

As a growing teenager, I often find it hard to determine who I am as an individual. I used the box as an icon of my self-being. I feel as a teenager we often take life for granted and forget how every decision we make is an important one. The stilts on the box are there to exaggerate how important the choices you make in life are. The shattered pieces of glass, directed toward the box, show the constant pressures in life. I chose mirror to show that by just looking in the mirror at yourself you think about who you are. The box is placed upside down to show how I have built my own shelter, apart from my family to protect myself in this world.

Open Box

The box I have created (recreated) is an “open box.” Here the box signifies self-imposed limitations within which we live. Whether in the marriage box, the mother box, the artist box, we notice ourselves playing certain preconceived roles. This becomes inhibiting and sometimes agonizing if we are not aware and perhaps unable to change the rules and roles of the boxes as we grow and change.

I particularly admire people who constantly recreate themselves; who seem unrestricted by society’s boxes. Louise Bourgeois, one of the great sculptors of this century, is one of these people. She looks at things, relationships, her life and her art always with a fresh eye.

One can see Louise Bourgeois in the ceiling of the open box by looking in the mirror. The picture shows her holding a large bronze phallus that she made. The photograph is by Robert Mapplethorpe. Above her is the shell which signifies the soul.

We Are This and That and Everything In Between

Ironically, rather than dealing with the Individual, Western society tends to place us in particular categories (little boxes) and more specifically opposing polarities in order to deal with us more easily, more quickly, less personally.

This easy stereotyping is even more prevalent in regard to the position of women: Madonna/Whore, Mother/Worker, Young/Old, Beautiful/Ugly, Nature/Culture. This box contains references to the stereotyping that we as women experience and the title, We are This and That and Everything in Between, refers to the true individual nature of the female sex.

 

The Women’s Voices: Diana Robson from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.

The Facade of Glamour

The glamour we see in women is not always representative of her inner self. It is just a facade. This box has all that goes with glamour on its outside, but on the inside it has all the turmoil and agony resulting from her daily chores.

From a Picture Frame On My Mantelpiece

As a 32-year old female Indian Diasporic artist, my preoccupations are complex. Feelings of confidence and vulnerability exist at the same time. My formal research, for the longest time, has been a documentation of my interactions with people and experiences by using photography. These photographs form part of a tale. The front, from top to bottom, depicts a meandering path of images of women, starting from infancy to old age. The back of the frame shows my life, whilst growing up in a politically charged environment, that all pervasive racism between the whites and the blacks and the Indians, and my moving to England at the age of fourteen, conflicting lifestyles, hidden desires, and a magnetic pull towards my (so-called?) homeland, India. Almost all my work reflects my relationship with India. In that murky sea of conflicting humanity, a different code is at work; therefore I am not in control, and have much to learn, and to re-learn. This preoccupation is less a romance, and more a sort of obsessive compulsion.

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.