I finally managed to see Tracy Emin’s She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea at Turner Contemporary, earlier this week. It’s such a beautiful title for a show apart from anything else. I took my parents with me as they wanted to visit Margate and were curious. While I was parking the car, they helped some elderly – probably same age as them but more infirm – women down the stairs and received a “warning” about what they were about to see!
Once in the gallery I left them to make of it what they would. I personally particularly wondered about the translation into embroidery and tapestry of her drawings; partly because of the gendered associations of that work and also because there was a sense of the gesture being slowed down: just think of the labour involved in hand dying the wool, before you even get to stitch it.
