i sit and sew — my heart aches with desire

i sit and sew  investigates the unidentified women of the Alexander Turnbull Library’s archive, printed upon fabric, to connect to the domesticated women of the early history in settler colonial New Zealand.

By including my original photographs of flowers that were introduced by early settlers, I speak to the symbols of domesticity and displacement in our settler colonial country, dispersed throughout the quilt to connect these women. Patching together photographs of unidentified women, to recognise their presence and identity, to ponder their story.

The title i sit and sew comes from Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s poem of the same name. From the perspective a woman trapped in the labours of domestication, aching for a sense of identity.

2022