the nostalgia collection, 2008
glazed, enamelled and
transfer decorated ceramics
approx 10x4x6 inch per piece
'Of all the ways of using history, nostalgia is the most general, looks the most innocent, and is perhaps the most dangerous'
(Chase, M., Shaw, C., 1989).
The ornaments that make up The Nostalgia Collection are based on traditional British Staffordshire mantelpiece dogs, whose popularity was at its peak in the Victorian era, the images painted and transferred onto them depicting scenes of an idyllic female lifestyle, featuring fashionably dressed ladies, aristocrats in love, mothers tending their playful children, flower and fruit arrangements and visions of countryside cottages; marketed at domestic women these were scenes for them to aspire to. Reproductions of these ornaments have been produced from their inception in the 1700s all the way up until today. The images transferred onto them have little changed, and are still directed at women.
It seems to me that these products are hinting at the notion that life was so much simpler before the perception of women and the roles that they play within society changed as dramatically as it has in the past hundred years. It is telling that sales of mantel dogs plummeted in the post war years, after votes for women were attained and women entered areas of employment that were previously closed to them. The reason that these images are still produced is that as long as they are financially profitable they will persist. Once something has been nostalgized, it becomes available for public consumption in the form of 'retro' and 'kitsch'.
It is irresponsible for companies to continue to wheel out age-old stereotypes in pursuit of profit. Images that direct the cultivation of social aspirations purely in the form of beautifying, family life, the home and the garden specifically to women are consciously outdated and oppressive. Whilst they continue to be present in society whether it be in decorative form or in 'women's glossies' and television adverts with the intention of pervading the female subconscious, encouraging them to find satisfaction in traditional gender roles and to aspire no further, 'women's liberation' and 'equality' have not yet been reached or been truly successful. The Nostalgia Collection shows that while on the surface it appears that women have social equality, upon closer inspection they are still subject to the same patronizing and oppressive imagery they were 100 years ago. It is up to women to defeat this self perpetuating system by rejecting all forms of gender stereotyping, beginning with the images that they are encouraged to emulate for the benefit of patriachal comfort and corporate profit. Women can and must break the system.
EDMR. May 2008.
Ref: Chase, Malcolm, and Christopher Shaw. The Dimensions of Nostalgia.
The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia. Ed. Chase and Shaw. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1989. 1-7. |
