Mammie

Thea used to talk about ‘Mammie’, her nanny when she was just a little girl in Virginia. I can’t help but associate this character from her past with this paperweight I found. The inherent racism in this object and the dark history of it creates an interesting dialogue between representation and the inanimate, provoking questions of race relations and appropriation.

Lighting Lena

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4583442.Gypsy_wake_closes_Sussex_road_for_two_weeks

Kai zhal o vurdon vurma mekela
Where the wagon goes a trail is left.

Butjis¹ burning she left us
Not to be remembered by her material possessions
Free from the things of our world
She would have cried of grace if she had seen the flickering shadows
Of the fire dancing across her familiyi’s² faces

I weaved some grass and watched
Her trunk crackling and caving
Mattress disintegrating
Me voliv tu, it whispered, Me voliv tu³

We buried her feet first
Standing 
For she lived life on her knees before God

Albert Wylly, Thea Kempf, and Giulia Cole

A razor found in an old drawer of forgotten things of Theas’s had the enscription ‘Albert Wylly’. What connection do these people have? Sharing a blade, a task in different moments in time. Was the beauty of this old object unoticed by Albert? Had he ever imagined who its owner would be now? What was it’s value to Thea, sentimental or material?

Model: Giulia Cole

Prep

Shave

Rinse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life’s Story

Life’s Story

a stranger’s dog
chained up outside a white, square house
awoken from a midday nap
by an unheard sound
bounding towards the invisible
only to be jerked back
after reaching the end of its leash