Silence
Nicola Hockley
(Graphic Design 1998)
Silence
Silence (hand-stitched hair and felt) is a response to the forgotten, erased and rewritten voices of modernist woman writers. Heroines by Kate Zambreno was the catalyst for its production.
This work is particularly meaningful to me in the current storm of COVID, climate change, social unrest, etc. We need to give representation to the overlooked and forgotten voices of the margins. As a female artist, with pro feminist views, I feel the need to pay homage to the woman in art and literature who have been silenced and deserve are attention. Now, more than ever, we need bow down their pioneering groundwork - they have laid the foundation for today and tomorrow.
I am drawn to textiles because I believe they have, the capacity to invite a more intimate relationship with the viewer and encourage a sensory response. The work considers textiles as a salient/non-verbal mode of communication. Silence is a conceptual inquiry negotiated through materials. I use the intrinsic qualities of these materials and processes to evoke associations, emotions, convey meaning and to align myself within a history of woman’s labor.
Vivien
Vivien (archival paper and stitched yarn) explores a section of "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot and Heroines by Kate Zambreno was the catalyst for its production.
This work is particularly meaningful to me in the current storm of COVID, climate change, social unrest, etc. We need to give representation to the overlooked and forgotten voices of the margins. As a female artist, with pro-feminist views, I feel the need to pay homage to the woman in art and literature who have been silenced and deserve our attention. Now, more than ever, we need bow down to their pioneering groundwork—they have laid the foundation for today and tomorrow.
'Rose'
Rose (hand-stitched screen print) forms part of a body of work that came about in response to a story about a traveling girl's wedding dress.
I was a selected artist for the Museum of Human Kindness: a creative community building art project where stories of kindness, gathered from people who have experienced kind acts, are made into works of art. It promotes creative activism and engagement through public exhibitions and workshops (The first staging of the museum took place November 2019 at Anteros Art Foundation, Norwich).
The story centres on Rose, a female member of the Irish travelling community. It is a story of kindness, compassion, inclusion and a community coming together. It also demonstrates the important role textiles play in our lives, both spiritually and culturally. The wedding dress operates as signifier and is imbued with iconography, tradition, nostalgia, and cultural values. It can symbolize love, but conversely it can express racial stereotypes. As a creative practitioner, I feel a responsibility to give representation to marginalized members of a community in a sensitive, empathetic, and compassionate manner in order to avoid prevailing negative social and racial stereotyping.