Agile-Fragile

Materials · Three-dimensional collage · Feathers · Paper · Golden cages

Feathered Heads

Three-dimensional collages of women’s heads adorned with feathers. Women who have left their cages, ready to fly elsewhere.

Two gold-framed collages of black and white female faces crowned with dark feathers and golden cages, with the phrase Keep listening to your inner voice.

Crowns of feathers

The three-dimensional collages evoke women’s heads adorned with feathers. The feathered hairstyles recall birds born in captivity, which have wings and the ability to fly but do not dare, because they do not yet know that they are free.

These figures are shown as mythological divinities: queens of their own lives, able to take light flight over the hardships of every day.

Leaving the cage

The women in the collages have left their cages. Whether chosen or imposed, those cages had imprisoned them to the point where they no longer recognised themselves.

It is the awareness of having left that sets them free. Only then can they use their potential and fly elsewhere. The feathers embody exactly this potential, long left unexpressed.

The Hydra of Lerna

Like the Hydra of Lerna, whose severed heads grow back, these women do not let defeat or tragedy paralyse them. They learn to multiply their strengths and abilities, turning every difficulty into a chance to grow, and refusing to passively accept the dictates imposed by society.

The body as work

The feathered head also steps out of the frame. The artist wears it herself, with red feathers in her hair, turning her own body into part of the work. The message written on one of the collages speaks to the viewer as much as to the maker: keep listening to your inner voice.

The artist in a red hat and red jacket, with hair of red feathers, looking to the side.
The feathered head as a performative gesture.
A woman in a white shirt with red feathers in her hair holds a small golden cage in her hands.
The cage in her hands, open at last.

Keep listening to your inner voice.