Damaged

I showed Trin my photos of my best friend C's art, and she asked to see more. With what is happening in Beslan today, it seems horribly appropriate.

A bit about C and her work

C is my best friend. She has a huge artistic talent, which was frustrated for years as she slogged away in a souless graphic design job to pay the rent. Last year she gave up her job and freelanced her arse off to raise the fees to follow her dream to study tapestry weaving. This summer she graduate from West Dean with a post-graduate diploma in fine art tapestry weaving, with distinction. These works form part of her final show.

As you'd expect for an artist, C is a visual person and expresses her self with her art, not her words. I'll try my best to explain what I understand was behind these works. (Apologies for the quality of the words and pictures, I'm neither an art critic nor a photographer).


Damaged 

Damaged is in 3 parts, as you can see. I think it's about war and conflict, displacement and refugees, land and freedom. Actually it's in 4 parts as there is also a video. Each piece is an original tapestry woven by C, and the video shows them being shot, burned and slashed.


Shot 
He who saves one life saves the world entire is a Jewish saying, which was said of Oskar Schindler. Shot also commemorates the young men who were shot at dawn during WW1, accused of 'cowardice' and 'desertion'.


Burned 
The writing woven into Burned is a recipe for bread. During the Bosnian conflict, people waiting in a bread queue in Sarajevo were killed when it was bombed.



Slashed 
The numbers on Slashed record people killed in conflicts. The trunk is an army trunk, I think, but also it could be a suitcase for the possessions of a displaced person. At the exhibition, there was a large pile of suitcases near by, speaking of refugees and also of the piles of suitcases the Nazis took off of people entering the death camps. Slashed was literally slashed, with a very large sword, in an ancient wood.

One thing you don't see here, which was for me the most moving part of Damaged, was a picture of the 3 pieces wrapped in white sheets or bags, like body bags, lying lined up in a field.


I also want to show you this, which C thinks is her best work so far, and which has been accepted for an international exhibition. The photos either side are of C's hands, wearing her Nana's wedding ring which she always wears.


Always and Forever 





Whatever your cause, some things are never justified.