Materials: found paper towel holder, Viva paper towel, embroidery thread
Dimensions: 15cm (H); 40cm (W), 25cm (D); 1.5kg (weight)
My practice often oscillates between employing the hyper-spectacle as a subversive strategy, and using banal, uninteresting, even typically ‘unspectacular’ materials. Sometimes both at the same time.
In Viva!, a single roll of of Viva paper towel is embroidered with a single, seemingly unbroken line of white thread. The work comments on the matrilineality of care labour and took approximately 30 unpaid hours to make. The sewn paper towel is mounted on a crude circa 1970s-style paper towel holder.
Viva! was damaged in 2022 when a patron tore two sheets from the roll to wipe their hands after using the hand sanitiser—reinforcing the message of the work that women’s labour is still very much unseen. The detached pieces are now exhibited alongside the roll of paper towel. Exhibiting the damaged part of work does not celebrate the incident, but it does remind us that art functions in the social context of the gallery. At the time, Brisbane was experiencing a COVID-19 wave and the public health requirement to hand sanitise was important. In this context, the incident was like an intervention—a small rupture—facilitating an additional moment of reflection. Viva! won the Moreton Bay Region Art Prize, 2022, and is held in the Moreton Bay Council Art Collection.
Sale price = $609.90*
*$20.33 (minimum wage) x 30 hours = sale price