Red Tents 2.
4th July 2020 The Gallops, Michelham, Surrey.
My very first public artwork was in March 2003. It comprised 28 illuminated red tents sited on a hillside, over three days and nights on a new moon. The work was commissioned for International Women’s Day. The piece examined the taboo of menstruation.
The tents had no openings, the internal world of the piece remained private. Perhaps that was a reflection of my own self at the time, a young mother.
Seventeen years later I wanted to remake the piece. I stripped the tents bare, with just their frames illuminated, glowing red in the dark, a majestic rawness within the encampment, nothing to hide. If you looked for too long, they would burn your eyes.
This time I showed the piece on a different hilltop, on a waxing moon, marking being very close to the end of a cycle. The piece was filmed from dusk till dawn using drone, time-lapse film and photography.
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