Madonnas
October 23, 2008
In a duel application of recycling, Landry both repurposes older objects and also recycles the meaning of the object. In Stolen Waters, our association of the washing machine as a cleaning device is supplanted with memories of female struggle and oppression to “woman’s work.”
Like most of her ideas, the project evolved from a desire to change the everyday. Landry had been fascinated with optic toys, especially the praxinoscope, and sought to create her own animation. She soon realized a washing machine would work perfectly.
“When you recognize an object you recognize the emotion you have with it. All objects have some emotion. Sometimes it’s very little. So, I just try to change this aspect on your memory because it’s attached like the name of the object.”
The work is also a shock to the senses. Triggered by motion sensors, the piece sits stationary until viewers get trigger it to turn on in a violent burst of noise and motion. Rather than have the piece always running the surprise effect adds to the pieces ability to shake up your preconceived notions of this ordinary object and achieve Landry’s hope for the viewer to see the world differently after.
Stolen Waters will be on display from Wed October 29 – Sat November 22 at la GNO in Sudbury, Ontario.
Pages: 1 2
