Last month I bought a tiny pair of very old Mary Janes on ebay, brown, well-worn and too scuffed to be sold for much. Just what I wanted: traces of wear and tear, illegible beyond the idea of a small child’s tottering steps, runs, falls, get-up-and-go-agains – decades, maybe generations ago.
I’ve got a thing for shoes, own more than is sensible for a person who doesn’t have a lot of steps in her, incl. a red pair and a sky-blue one which I hope to wear soon, on a day with mellow air and the sun out. After I fell ill aeons ago some of the first things I made were tissue-paper shoes – the material accidental (a birthday present’s wrapping) and not: at the time I could hardly hold anything in my hands – lightness led the way.
My work is memory work. I’m still making outfits from scratch but want to look at (second hand) objects too, to attempt a different kind of connection and recall beyond myself, beyond my life-time. With children’s clothes nostalgia beckons. The cuteness of these wee shoes which easily fit into the palm of my hand
…and/but… those images of heaps of shoes, incl. children’s, clothes, glasses, hair in Auschwitz. How does a brain/heart transverse from terror to banality in a couple of paragraphs? I’ve always found it difficult to perceive and accept that these things exist alongside.
I wanted to just present my little shoes and their delicate crocheted hair cosy, but in the light/in the darkness of things
Untitled (2013)
Dimensions: 10 cm x 11,5 cm x 5 cm
Materials: pair of leather shoes, encased in web crocheted from artificial hair
