Headstones

Hand carved miniature headstone originals. 2011

Another work investigating the act of my naming - in which I made comparisons between my Grandmother, Emmeline Elsie Maisey, and myself, Emily Jane Iliohan.

As a result of a visit to my grandmother’s unmarked grave I began crafting a series of small scale headstones, with varying inscriptions. The Headstones served as a way of marking out, prescribing, inscribing and describing some of the relations on naming that I uncovered. I was also trying to find points of meaning between definable parameters that she and I both had (names and dates). This exercise also uncovered a series of physical conditions that are implied by burial. It bought new meaning to my desire to use the lie as a way of re-contextualising the space of performance.