Party in
the Lilac Room was my final installation at Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Gardens, and took the form of a
paste up style installation of tiny paper dresses site specific to the 1930s historic home Benga.
The paper
dresses are printed images reproduced from the Heritage Hill museum catalogue
records for the Hart collection.
The original
dresses were owned by Mrs Dorothy Hart, and most of the dresses were probably
kept wardrobes in the house for many years.This installation frees the tiny dresses from the archives, for a brief but shimmering gathering in Dorothy Hart’s former home.
I enjoyed using catalogue records as part
of a display – bringing a hidden administrative element of managing a museum
collection out of their museological closet.
The cut outs stand in for the dresses in a way that has the
appeal of paper dolls and dresses. They also remind me of insects in the way they cluster toward the window.
The installation is a fanciful imagining of a gathering of
the dresses, almost as ghosts
returning to play in the space.
The format appealed to me for it’s simplicity. I cut out the dresses a few at a time
in an evening, which echoed Dorothy Hart making the real dresses .
I try to use low impact materials
for my art projects. My three installations at Heritage Hill used some recycled paper, less than a packet
of blue tac, and, in the case of We Thought You Were Coming Tomorrow, objects
I re-arranged and put back afterwards.
I like making ephemeral works that disappear (possibly
not a good idea as no one can buy them) but echoing the transcience of the
passing moment that the works evoke.
