Parlor Talk

The audience listens to women working/coming into a beauty parlor in Bangalore, India. Comments on the possibility of private space, and what home is. Control and security are associated to the presence of men in women's lives.

As foreigners, immigrants, urban nomads and women, how do we negotiate personal space and how is this influenced by the circumstances we live in? In an attempt to create an approximation to these questions and to the participants, a situation was dislocated and recreated from a place regarded as a typically feminine domain in India (and other countries): the beauty parlor.

The title is a reference to both the conversations that form the basis of the audio work, as well as to the performance that was enacted during the exhibition at 1Shanthi Road gallery, in which individual participants received a manicure from the artist.

The performance and accompanying audio work "parlor talk" were developed during the bangaloREsidency in Bangalore, India.

(Source: Artist's Website)