2 tub decades is for live performer and pre-recorded video. the artist recites memories of bathing while painting soap, shower gel, and shaving cream onto the projected body, obstructing the view of the image.
The work uses a voice-over of memories, ranging from age five to twenty-five, of being in a bathtub. My interest in the bathtub specifically comes from its ubiquity as an object in modern culture and the relatability of being in the bathtub or of cleaning oneself. I rarely use a bathtub (as opposed to a shower) for cleaning; I much more often use it for mental and/or emotional reflection, making the bath a place of confrontation with one’s body and experience. For that period of time, I see myself as sitting in my filth, both physical and emotional. By using these life stories in a site with strong associations of the material body and of being alone, I use memory as the site of embodied knowledge and autobiographical narrative.
Performed at Brunel University, London in February, 2014.