inside ( we are all )

Inside (we are all)
BOXCARSIX artist collective
July 2019

Inside is a room, a cave, a body; your Mother, the sea. It is a club,
a family, a tribe. It is memories and secrets, warm and dark. It is a
safe place or a prison. It is ignoring the other, or your own truth,
in order to belong.
This installation is part of an ongoing investigation into the
concept of inside by BOXCARSIX, a Victoria-based feminist
contemporary artist collective. For such a little word, inside holds
much: it is laden with possibilities of privilege and belonging, but
these depend upon its opposite – outside – and the borders, walls,
and modes of thinking built to keep the right people in and the
wrong people out.
There is one inside we all share, and it is pink. We have therefore
created a physical – and very pink - manifestation of our bodily
insides in the gallery space using both household and industrial
materials. Juxtaposing hard and soft, within and without, “inside
(we are all)” creates a bodily experience of inside within which the
visitor can experience and re-consider notions of belonging – in
our bodies, in our domestic spaces and even the urban/industrial
landscapes in which we live.
In the course of making this work, we have plundered the local
thrift shops for pink fabric, ripped up countless pillows for stuffing
and sewn and talked and eaten, (sometimes all at the same time,)
around dining room tables across Victoria.
Our thanks to everyone at Ministry of Casual Living for making