Not at Home by Gillian Dyson
The project is an opportunity to extend my questioning of body and object and particularly in how performance action disturbs normal understanding of the domestic object and the feminine body. There is an awareness of the work of historic feminist artists such as Martha Rosler. The context of the gallery offers a way to re-frame the action and objects in a formal setting and to further dislocate the relationship to the domestic. I am interested in questioning the ‘value’ of the art object and the socio-historic object, and in developing an aesthetic of the ordinary. The title alludes to being away from home – travelling perhaps; or to something foreign, but also to a sense of mental or physical instability – something uncanny. I hope that a discourse is prompted by the performance action that can further my research and provoke new thinking for me around how and why this work happens.