Anne Kay

Speak, speak, 1994

Materials: Calico, wadding, handmade buttons, metal eyelets

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Exhibited at the Catacombs artist-run space in the group show Home, a theme of dwelling domesticity. Two walls of the disused factory/warehouse space were covered with calico panels sewn entirely by hand. The panels were fixed to the walls at two hundred points by screws. The impression was one of containment of sound, with the surface of the panels reading alternately as the comfort of soft upholstery and the walls of a psychiatric institution. On a pillar near the walls was attached a padded, upholstered section which resembled a gymnasium punching bag, from which emanated a faint scent of naphthalene.