Complicit curtain

 

In the final part of my research and the accompanying exhibition the net curtain becomes complicit in the dysfunctional home by enlarging and acting anthropomorphically. The cloth seeping from walls, doorways and windows (below) suggests that the net curtain is an unstoppable force and the disquieting memories of the home cannot be stifled or concealed.

 

As part of this section I also considered the potential of darkness to aid complicity in the home by helping to obfuscate meaning and memory. The image at the head of this post comes from the series on darkness, which consists of three lace-trimmed net curtains in a room with timed periods of light and darkness. The lace is overlaid with embroidery in luminous thread which reveals its message, not in the light but in the dark, showing that darkness can be more illuminating than daylight.

 

My oversized ninepin lace is also part of this chapter. It represents the idea of the net curtain and its lace trim expanding into the house and snaking through it on a dangerous path of destruction. Together these aspects of the net curtain reflect Freud’s ideas about the uncanny home, tempered by the work of Antony Vidler who built on Freud’s work to suggest that the home becomes complicit in its change from homely to unhomely.