Work in Progress ~ Week 8
She Moves Through The House
by Selina Vicenzino
What am I investigating?
Within my video, I hope to continue my exploration of home that has been echoing through both my photographic practice, and the rest of my art, before and whilst I’ve been in the process of moving. My final video will be a feminist meditation, focusing on daily menial tasks. The subject will be my house and myself, and the rituals of cleaning, cooking, dwelling in a domestic space. The piece will reflect these mundane tasks previously culturally relegated to being “women’s work”, but transform them into rituals of quietness and care. I will transform the body into the home, and the work completed will be acts of consideration, like I am just doing these tasks to take care.
A big part of the reason I wanted to do this subject is because of one night in my Brisbane home. I came home after a gig, I was a little tipsy and my ears were ringing. It was the odd occasion where no one in my 4 person house wasn’t home. I came into the kitchen-living room and I saw all of our things. Old flowers my housemates partner had gotten her, the pita bread we had bought and shared earlier, the dishes in the sink, the empty wine glasses, all lit by a buzzing old lamp that had been kept on. I thought to myself, how beautiful our stuff is! The combination of our lives in this messy still life display made me feel so happy.
Process of my Work:
My most recent piece from my personal practice is the zine entitled ‘I wonder if you have found a place to watch the sunset’. This zine is about reflecting of moments of home, and how they tend to remain very still when you’re away. Nothing really changes.
‘When I moved away from home for the first time, I was surprised by how nothing ever really changed when I was gone. My parents' house always smelled the same, like the walls had held their breath and waited. The streets radiated the same humid heat, the gate made the same creak when you opened and closed it. And the sky, always the exact same shade of blue, stretched out like nothing had moved. Now moving away again, I am comforted in this constant. Thinking of my friends and family at home and the streets I know by heart. I know that when I go back, everything will be waiting. Familiar, steady, and as left...’
This zine has gotten me to explore not just forms of home in a personal sense (that is, photographs of special places in Brisbane I took before I left, or pictures of my new house here in West Footscray), but also to evaluate the concept of home in a more broader sense.
The first mini project I completed was documenting West Footscray homes, and the unique little parts of them all.
This mini project was a really fun exercise for thinking about other people’s definitions of home. Whether it’s the park you went to as a kid, the little wire signs that say the number of the house, the little flower cut outs below windows or the way the sun shines from a specific window at a specific time of day. There are so many different parts of home that are nostalgic for different people.
This made me want to focus on little specific things about my own house. These have become the set up shots within my video although I am still experimenting with the order of things.
Stills of some initial shots: evoking stillness in the house, someone has been here or is here but there isn’t any evidence of them yet.
A main thing that will make the piece feel more grand is the amount of clips of different parts of the home. I think it will really make the “rhythm” of the house be more full.
And moving onto ritual’s within the home, featuring myself and my partner
Still experimenting with framing, lighting, clothing. Initially I wanted all the clothes I wear to be hand-me-downs from family members because I do have a lot of them! But it’s become quite difficult because I tend to wear a lot of the same things.
My recent ideas have come from this image by Janine Antoni entitled ‘Inhabit’. The description of the piece is as follows:
In Inhabit, Antoni turns her attention to the complex role of mothering. After years of exploring her relationship to her family and most specifically to her mother, Antoni now focuses on herself in this role. Embracing the necessity of shape–shifting to accommodate this position, the artist renders herself half–spider, half–hermit crab. It is unclear whether her body is suspended or ascending: whether or not she is entrapped or the structure of support. On closer inspection it is clear that she is holding space for a very delicate creation.
Within the assignment, I already was thinking about ideas of sitting within a house but more within the home of my body. Not an actual house. I have always love the imagery of Alice in Wonderland where she grows into the pink house and she sits within it. So I have been able to get my hands on an actual doll house, which I hope to loosen the screws on, and edit somehow, so I am able to sit within it as well.
The main thing at this stage I am thinking about is the sequencing of things. I am currently a bit unsure how to introduce the idea of the house without it being super out of nowhere.
Audio tests are not super thorough yet and therefore are not included here.
The next period of time I will be continuing to gain more and more clips of the gentle moments of routine and ritual, gathering audio and going to bunnings and understanding how I will be able to fit into the house!
