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The artwork is made up of a large leather living room arm chair. The arm chair is slightly distressed and decorated, with endless reams of paperwork, pieces of material and textiles emerging from it. Around the chair are scatted shredded paperwork. Within the paperwork are printed words and phrases, like ‘overwhelming paperwork’ and ‘they attach many words and phrases’. The paper-work used in the piece come from the many health, social care and education reports, assessments, correspondence that the Mother Carer previously completed while on a journey with her son.
How many forms did you fill out today?
The artwork is a large hanging puppet structure. The right side is covered with hessian cloth and printed names of the females who were termed as ‘idiot’ or ‘imbecile’ in York Union Workhouse on census records for 1901. Down the middle of the puppet is a red painted line. On the left side, the puppet is covered with newspaper and red painted words such as ‘loser, loner, lazy’. On the head of the puppet, on the right side is a pin badge with a sunflower on it an the words ‘face mask exempt’.
Honour these Women and Children
‘You don’t know how I feel’
Image of an artwork, it is made up of 44 linocut prints of a wig on a headstand. The hair is coloured in one of four colours: orange, pink, yellow, and green. There are eleven of each colour. On each print is the name of each woman, individually printed with letterpress type. Each print hangs on wire from a raised structure and includes a snippet of hair, each dipped in wax coloured in one of four colours: orange, pink, yellow, and green.
The 44
Image of printed poem in a frame hanging in a window. The text reads .... Eliza Poskill’s Hope Deaf, dumb, blind, imbecile Do you know how I feel? Locked behind these walls A name that nobody calls. Idiot, feeble minded, lunatic: Are the walls really so thick? Being labelled as a maniac. Do we ever fight back? Feel wind on flowing hair? Can I pick what I want to wear? Do I have my own home? Am I allowed to freely roam? Did you pick up our sword- See this as untoward- Are we people yet? Deaf, dumb, blind, imbecile, I pray you don’t know how I feel. Yours faithfully, Eliza Poskill, Imbecile, age 15.
Eliza Poskill’s Hope
Image of a printed poem in a frame hanging in a window. Ordinary life at extraordinary cost My son lives in an ordinary house in an ordinary street, enjoying an ordinary life like any other. Paradoxically it’s taken extraordinary efforts by his family over many years to make it happen. Given the state of adult social care we regard this as the safest option for him. Behind the scenes of my son’s life it’s me who makes his support happen. Services never think to ask what that involves. They don’t make it easy. Over the years, hundreds of well-meaning professionals have drifted in and out of our lives, and still we have to fight for funding. It’s easy to lose sight of who you are, drown in a sea of bureaucracy, disagreements, challenges and gaslighting. But my son is where he’s meant to be, enjoying a life not a service, because of his family, his rock. Unpaid family carer
Ordinary life at extraordinary cost
Published July 16, 2024By S1dba1il1ty
Categorized as Uncategorized

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Eliza Poskill’s Hope

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