Bound beyond the unfolding dreams of hidden daughters, where no earthly mind can enter, 2023
This commission responded to an unusual space within Chiswick House – the closet connected to the Bedchamber. Only a few favoured people would have been invited into the closet as they were part of a small, trusted, and intimate circle. I was also interested by the way the building, based on classical architecture, purposefully restricted access from the exterior public area to the deeper intimate interior spaces, reflecting our exposed public selves and our deeper, private selves and psyche.
The sculpture features a spiraling path of circular forms reflecting Lady Burlington’s cultivation of circles of friendships, family, and creativity together with her husband’s love for the geometric forms of classical architecture. During my research it struck me that in the last years of Lady Burlington’s life, when she slept alone in the red Bedchamber, she was a widow and had outlived all three of her daughters. The work considers the connections of universality, emotion and the human experience that go beyond the grandeur of wealth and privilege.
For the installation titled 'Bound beyond the unfolding dreams of hidden daughters, where no earthly mind can enter' I coiled and stitched by hand a whole vintage sari sourced from Surat, Gujrat. The form refers to the spiralling path from the public to the private intimate spaces of the house; the symbolism of the unfolding lotus, our past, present and future lives together with universal geometric diagrams that mark thresholds and sacred spaces.