Shelter (2019)
Shelter is exactly that, a shelter from fallout. I am heavily influenced by ‘Protect and Survive’ in this work, a civil defence booklet that was published in the late 1970’s, to give guidance to the public to prepare for nuclear war. In this booklet we are encouraged to make our fallout shelters from doors and textiles with in our homes to protect us from the nuclear war. For queer people, the ‘cold war’ of homophobia could come from within our own homes. As closeted young people, we often find that our rooms become our inner refuge, our shelters being our beds that we then share with our partners as life boats in a homophobic world.
The artist has made her own shelter for one, that has embroidered patches with things that she would tell her younger self interlaced with imagery from lesbian history. Her own physical shelter against an invisible cold war with tips on how to survive the fallout of coming out.