Holding up the sky, 2018
24 November 2018 - 16 February 2019, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery
Holding up the sky, knitted domestic cleaning cloths, cotton, wire, pvc pipe, diameter 260cm. Photo by Garry Trinh
The Masks We Wear
Essay by Dr Kath Fries
“Sometimes we juggle masks, sometimes they just fall off.”
Cleaning is a guise, a mask that veils the imperfections of human living, hiding the detritus of everyday family life. Cleaning is always labour, predominantly women’s labour, even today, especially in the home. Cleaning is usually care-work, but care-work is never just cleaning.
…
Brescia’s work disturbs and challenges how we label and confront ingrained assumptions of women’s roles, their place in society and how women’s experiences are valued. Her play of masks, slippages between visibility and invisibility, engages a strong feminist voice with both current and long unresolved concerns in society about binary gender roles across the personal, familial, community and political spectrums. These works are personal and universal, embodied materials experiences of the exhaustion and resilience of Holding up the sky.
Resilence Spiral, coil weave, domestic cleaning cloths, wool, diameter 280cm. Photo by Garry Trinh
Linda Brescia was the artist-in-residence with Fairfield City Museum & Gallery in 2018