Lace Kitchen

Lace Kitchen

This sculptural installation was exhibited at Nexus Multicultural Arts Centre, Adelaide, South Australia.

The work involved a re-creation of Christina's first home and birth place, in particular, her Oma's kitchen in Seymour, Victoria, Australia.

Lace Kitchen developed from kitchen sink conversations between Christina and her Oma, Hermina, during family visits at various stages of her developing years.

'Running of the kitchen sink taps, froth of boiling dishwater, handling of pots and soaking of teatowel after teatowel gave way to Oma's flowing verbal recollections of her homeland memories at her farm located in Heeten, The Netherlands. From Oma's stories grew a fictional landscape dotted with make-shift memories that burned acid rain tears into the very pans we scrubbed and dried'.

Lace Kitchen becomes a 'fictional homeland' that communicates from the space between, a place created from Christina's maternal family's migration to Australia during the 1960's assimilationist years - where the process of losing language and cultural traditions is then communicated through imagery created by drilled holes into familiar kitchen objects and lit internally with candles.

This installation resulted in Christina's 2006 overseas trip to visit her grandmother's farm in Heeten, Holland.

Acknowledgements

• The Family Overmars, Heeten,
  The Netherlands
• Maikel Mollink, Lelystad,
  The Netherlands

Download catalogue here (pdf 287kb)