Inconvenient Bodies
Chambers, Paula 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8245-9880
(2023)
Inconvenient Bodies.
[Show/Exhibition]
Abstract
Inconvenient Bodies was an exhibition conceived and created specifically for Hošek Contemporary, a gallery in a converted goods barge. Research Process: The work consisted of three large chiffon panels printed with images of disused ladies’ public toilets from Manchester, Brighouse and Scarborough. The panels were held up by wooden washing poles on satin rope, and accompanied by thirty small plywood and copper cut-outs of the ‘ladies’ symbol often found on toilet doors. The research develops Chambers’ interest in the accessibility (or not) of public toilets explored in her performance work Urinary Leash – materialising the precarity of bodies that transgress categorisation. This work has been conceptualised in relation to the feminisation of migratory labour and to the labour of the woman artist. Research Insights: Inconvenient Bodies is an example of a strategy for producing sculptural works small or compact enough so that they can be transported in the hold of a plane, as a nomadic feral art practice. This strategy highlights the work that artists do beyond the confines of the white cube gallery space. The production of this series of works prompted Chambers’ further enquiry into the history of women’s public toilets in the UK, and has led into ongoing documentation of public toilet facilities across the UK and in Europe. The findings of this investigation are that women’s public toilets in the UK (established nearly a century after similar facilities for men) have been in steep decline for several decades, unlike their European counterparts. Currently, Chambers has documented 47 women’s public toilets. Dissemination: The work was exhibited at Hošek Contemporary, Berlin, Germany, 5 – 9 April 2023.
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