A safe home environment is not as commonplace as one may assume. Safe as Houses addresses the every day in documenting the life my family conducts presently as a result of parting from abusive conditions. The work aims to draw upon the fragility of the safety and comfort felt within ones' home, and to refer to the mundane as a luxury to be preserved. 

​

My grandmothers' bungalow has been a place of consistent comfort and security; it was this small space in which myself, my sister and my mother lived in transition from distancing ourselves from an abusive environment to the home we live in now. The ceramic sculptures therefore derived from features of my grandmothers' house.

​

Her furniture has held us as we have expressed our worries and supported each other; our conversations ingrained within the fabrics of her living room. Ceramic sculpture related to this notion of fragility due to the nature of the medium itself, and in making monotonous household objects in this medium, they are then ornamental. This medium is also a domestic material as it can be found inside kitchen cupboards and below bathroom mirrors. Clay itself originates from mother earth, and therefore references the maternally charged upbringing I have experienced. The sculptures are accompanied by an interactive telephone piece depicting the sounds and conversations within my grandmothers' living room during one of our Sunday dinners; all of which is surrounded by domestic film photography.

​

Viewers were encouraged to walk over the ceramic tiles lain across the floor. Preceeding and even following the assurance that this was allowed, viewers retained a tentative approach of extreme care -even during their destruction of the tiles. This further enforced the sensation of 'walking on eggshells' within a home environment.