Subversive stitching

Domesticity as we know it developed in Victorian Britain when the home became a gendered site of separate spheres. These works re-read the domestic using subversive stitching. The lace doilies rebel against their function and cry ‘get off me’ and #Me Too, while the QR codes reveal the hidden thoughts of the trapped seamstress. The dinner mats with their tacked lace inserts and text from the marriage service reflect how women are constrained by domesticity. They were inspired by research into Amy Atkin, the first female Nottingham machine lace designer, who like many others at the time had to relinquish paid work on marriage. The net curtain rereads the gothic novel Paul Ferroll, in which the husband murders his wife and evades justice; it records the wife’s version of the story, as she narrates it from beyond the grave and pleads for justice.