Joscelyn Gardner : Braided NarrativesTools Mahon, Patrick. Joscelyn Gardner : Braided Narratives. Toronto, Ont.: Open Studio, 2005.
Abstract (English)"The work, Plantation Poker: the Merkin Stories, plays on the pubic triangle as a symbolic site of female sexual exploitatin during slavery and, as with my earlier Creole Portraits series, suggests hair decoration as a form of self-empowerment. Drawing on the symbolic function of wigs worn by European men in the eighteenth century to signify social order, this work explores the fashion for "counterfeit hair for a woman's privy parts" (1776) that became popular around the same time because of the presence of syphilis (the cure for which caused hair loss). Analogous to the beard, the merkin was literally a "pubic wig" that I now reclaim to speak to female Creole identity and a history of bondage." -- Joscelyn Gardner, 2004.
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