Barrier Cream
images: Rose HastieBarrier Cream functions as a visual representation of coping mechanisms adorning a D.I.Y haven that slips between protection and alienation. Personal boundaries act as the skin, a permeable membrane that keeps us intact and allows the world to filter through, parallel to the activity of keeping healthy relationships.
Diving into the complexities of personal boundaries and the impact they have on our well-being in an age dominated by digital distractions where mental health is closely monitored. The tensions that exist in this space are palpable when the boundary can harm as much as it can help and the balance is precarious.
Borrowing from disparate histories of protective elements (medicinal food, homemade spells, castles with moats), this tumble of objects serves to highlight the constant labour of managing vulnerabilities with whatever resources are available.
What can we do? but be reminded of our own edges, our bodies in space, our place in community and how our actions ripple out into the world around us.
‘The skin of milk can make one gag and retch because it
represents the subject’s own skin, the boundary dividing the self from the world. The subject literally chokes on its own corporeal limits.’
Bass, Patricia B. “The Post-Edible in Art: The Limits of the Abject at the Whitney Museum.” Scenes of the Obscene: The Non-Representable in Art and Visual, Ed. J. Ullrich and K. Nakas Culture, Middle Ages to Today, 2014.