Memory Map: 8/ 64 Walpole Street, Merrylands, NSW 2160, 2023, Digital Image
12 Maubeuge Street, South Granville, NSW 2142, 2023, Digital Image
If home is where the heart is, then the bed is where your body rests. But what does that mean when your bed is made from concrete? Houso Sweet Houso: The Bed is a continuation of themes and ideas investigated in my 2018 self-published zine Houso Sweet Houso a part of my zine series GRRL ZINE (2014 to present). Taking influence from the Brutalist architecture that surrounded me in the five New South Wales Public Housing dwellings I grew up in, it explores the harsh realities of a child growing up in poverty. The Bed is made from a structure of upcycled cans and milk cartons, the sustainable materials I had access to, to create the work. Houso Sweet Houso: The Bed aligns with the reoccurring themes of recontextualisation and adaption within my practice. Using the exterior material of concrete to recreate the interior object, my bed I am recontextualising the public material of Brutalist concrete within the personal space of my bedroom. My artistic practice explores visible aspects of my marginalised identity, this is the first work in my practice to explore a social aspect of my identity that is not physical.
Housing is a human right. You can learn more here: https://actionforpublichousing.org/
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Emily Greenwood is a mixed-Tongan artist and writer based on the unceded lands of the Darug people. Their work consists of themes involving intergenerational trauma, loss of culture, sexism, racism and classism. Recently they have begun to investigate the intersections of Pasifika & Eurocentric art histories through their conceptual exploration of cultural appropriation and adaption. Their most significant work to date is their self-written and published intersectional feminist zine GRRL ZINE.