Bed Work

The Bed Story

The more I read about women’s lives being constricted by their clothes, social mores etc. combined with the fact that I have an interest in the history of housework, I became more interested in what was happening to women in their homes.  

Because women have always been associated with the home, hearth and all the domestic duties that belong to them, this project is about memories and moments that are attached to specific objects within our homes − specifically beds. In order to create a more intimate experience, these stories are told with the use of doll beds as well as salesman sample beds.

Historically our life cycle begins and ends in the bed, from being born in a bed, and then dying in one. As children we used the bed as an impromptu trampoline or tent. As we got older, it became the place in which intimacies are shared with significant others. It used to be that all of our life cycles (birth, sickness, death) occurred in our beds, in the family home. In the second half of the 20th century so much of our lives have been taken out of the home and moved to places where we become handled by specialists i.e. the hospital bed or any other specialized institution.

I realize that these things have been shared by both men and women but since women tend to be the primary housekeeper of the home (and for a long time were considered the center of family life), this project focuses on girls/women and their thoughts and stories about their beds.

It is because of these domestic associations, that in order to read these intimate stories the reader must unmake each bed, pulling back the covers to “turn the pages.” In order to close the work [book], one must re-make the bed, mimicking the actions of women’s housework that have been done for centuries.

Descriptions and additional photos of each piece can be found at their individual pages