(un)corset, 2024.

As a culture, we seem to be fascinated and appalled by corsets in equal measure - the dominant cultural discourse on corsets today is a debate on whether the garments are a symbol of the oppression of women or of their sexual liberation. I find myself in an ongoing conflict with the discipline of lingerie that I am trained in: my practice often returns to the corset as a symbol of a femininity that is restrictive and constraining.

The corset I made in this work required a special corset mannequin to show it - a mannequin that is soft like flesh. I made the corset mannequin by tearing away layers of polystyrene and wadding it back up to mimic flesh. I was interested in documenting the violence of this action that replicates the dynamic between the garment and the body, how the painstaking construction of this garment required a parallel deconstruction.