Porcupine Corset
Porcupine Corset
birch bark, porcupine quills, hardware, thread, lace
15"x12"x16"
In this piece, I wanted to embellish the corset to exhibit its function as both clothing and cultural restraint. Through the use and orientation of the quills, I intend the viewer to move between seeing the quills as representative of the creature itself and of the human cultural realm, a realm reflected through craft practices as well as costume. These methods, in combination with the skinned bark serve to exhibit that the quills have lost their original purpose in favour of another.
The quills and tree transformed into the corset epitomize the relationship which I see existing between human culture and the natural realm, a relationship which both celebrates and subjugates nature, which reveres and binds, all in the attempt to define the human.