Proposal - Alina and Kelly
Years ago Western middle - upper class women were not aloud or wlecomed into many public spaces, so their lives outside of the home were very limited compared to men who were free to go everywhere. The home though, was a place where women were the most comfortable and where they performed the domestic duties that were expected of them.
Letter-writing was a way to communicate with family and friends. It was considered a craft, refined, and quiet, and while men could be authors of books andencyclopedias, women left behind their stories in letters, journals, and diaries. It was their way of escape from their everyday domestic duties and lives. In their letters, some women would cast themselves in adventure stories as the heroin, so they could be someone entirely different to what was expected of a lady at that time. These letters were a doorway into psyches and dramatized the tensions that resulted from the pressures to accept the societal conventions and conform to standards of morality. It is through letter-writing that women could express their desires to revolt against the restrictive social and moral standards placed upon them. The writing itself usually took place in a specific private space in the home sometimes at a writing desk. Though the reading of letters was at times meant only for one person in private, it could also be a family affair where the letters and stories were read aloud to entertain the whole family.
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As two women living in the 21st Century in a large urbanized city, how do we live inside our homes compared to Western, middle-class women years ago? How are things different? How has technology affected our modes of communicating from within the house to the outside world? What can we learn about ourselves and our roles of femininity in today's society by comparing the present to the past?
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Our project will focus on our (Kelly and Alina) performances of femininity in our everyday life through letter writing. In these letters we will explore the constraints and pressures from society whichinhibit us today. We will speak about our domestic responsibilities in our homes, things we learn while in the home ie. reading, television, radio, telephone, internet, as well as what we do in our homes daily however mundane it may be.
We will write one letter and receive one letter per day. These letters will be handwritten, scanned, and e-mailed to the other person. Another method of communication that will be explored is handwriting on MSN (using a mouse or tablet). We are communicating by writing to eachother using a form that is dying (handwritten letters) and sending our letters using a form that is thriving (e-mail, MSN). In addition we will document, using a video camera, ourselves writing the letters, and performing femininity within the household i.e. cleaning, cooking, applying makeup, entertaining, roles of girlfriend and wife, etc.
Our presentation of the project (still in progress) will consist of three panels that hang over a clothesline: 1) a video projection onto a curtain playing segments of the footage that we have documented, 2) a fabric quilt that has our letters transferred onto it, 3) a curtain where behind it Alina sits in a chair and reads the letters that Kelly has wriitten and then we change, you will only see a shadow of the reader and hear her voice. The display of the panels symbolize pages.
Other possible ideas to display the letters, instead of creating the quilt are: a book comprised of letters, possibly some photo documentation, or chair, napkins, towels, laundry, place settings, pillows, dresses, that will have the letters transferred onto them.
We are still editing our idea and evolving but this is where we are right now with this project.
Please give us some feedback if you can - don't be shy!
http://moderntimes.vcdh.virginia.edu/madison/exhibit/index.html
http://clendening.kumc.edu/dc/fn/
http://www.victorians.org.uk/
http://www.victorians.asp-host.co.uk/welcome.htm
Years ago Western middle - upper class women were not aloud or wlecomed into many public spaces, so their lives outside of the home were very limited compared to men who were free to go everywhere. The home though, was a place where women were the most comfortable and where they performed the domestic duties that were expected of them.
Letter-writing was a way to communicate with family and friends. It was considered a craft, refined, and quiet, and while men could be authors of books andencyclopedias, women left behind their stories in letters, journals, and diaries. It was their way of escape from their everyday domestic duties and lives. In their letters, some women would cast themselves in adventure stories as the heroin, so they could be someone entirely different to what was expected of a lady at that time. These letters were a doorway into psyches and dramatized the tensions that resulted from the pressures to accept the societal conventions and conform to standards of morality. It is through letter-writing that women could express their desires to revolt against the restrictive social and moral standards placed upon them. The writing itself usually took place in a specific private space in the home sometimes at a writing desk. Though the reading of letters was at times meant only for one person in private, it could also be a family affair where the letters and stories were read aloud to entertain the whole family.
>
As two women living in the 21st Century in a large urbanized city, how do we live inside our homes compared to Western, middle-class women years ago? How are things different? How has technology affected our modes of communicating from within the house to the outside world? What can we learn about ourselves and our roles of femininity in today's society by comparing the present to the past?
>
>
Our project will focus on our (Kelly and Alina) performances of femininity in our everyday life through letter writing. In these letters we will explore the constraints and pressures from society whichinhibit us today. We will speak about our domestic responsibilities in our homes, things we learn while in the home ie. reading, television, radio, telephone, internet, as well as what we do in our homes daily however mundane it may be.
We will write one letter and receive one letter per day. These letters will be handwritten, scanned, and e-mailed to the other person. Another method of communication that will be explored is handwriting on MSN (using a mouse or tablet). We are communicating by writing to eachother using a form that is dying (handwritten letters) and sending our letters using a form that is thriving (e-mail, MSN). In addition we will document, using a video camera, ourselves writing the letters, and performing femininity within the household i.e. cleaning, cooking, applying makeup, entertaining, roles of girlfriend and wife, etc.
Our presentation of the project (still in progress) will consist of three panels that hang over a clothesline: 1) a video projection onto a curtain playing segments of the footage that we have documented, 2) a fabric quilt that has our letters transferred onto it, 3) a curtain where behind it Alina sits in a chair and reads the letters that Kelly has wriitten and then we change, you will only see a shadow of the reader and hear her voice. The display of the panels symbolize pages.
Other possible ideas to display the letters, instead of creating the quilt are: a book comprised of letters, possibly some photo documentation, or chair, napkins, towels, laundry, place settings, pillows, dresses, that will have the letters transferred onto them.
We are still editing our idea and evolving but this is where we are right now with this project.
Please give us some feedback if you can - don't be shy!
http://moderntimes.vcdh.virginia.edu/madison/exhibit/index.html
http://clendening.kumc.edu/dc/fn/
http://www.victorians.org.uk/
http://www.victorians.asp-host.co.uk/welcome.htm
Labels: Letters of domesticity
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