The floor was where it fed, the oven was where it fruited
Well Projects is excited to present The floor was where it fed, the oven was where it fruited, an exhibition of new works by Hannah Lees. In The floor was where it fed.. Lees’ exploration of her experiences of pregnancy and motherhood finds a delicate structure amongst the tangled cycles of exchange between mother, child and non-human actors.
Often finding resonance amongst material remains; beach combed souvenirs, the detritus of living things, and objects that have faded into obsolescence become the fruiting bodies that allude to a web of familial connection and entangled life. With some of the works in the show being produced over a period of years these materials hold memories of their functions, and through their repurposing, memories of the unseen threads that bind people to one another.
Botanical dyes, old baby changing matts, ‘what to expect’ baby books and oyster shells that mark the celebration of her son’s birth sit alongside a video work lifted from ‘Hellraiser’. Both beautiful and visceral, these works reflect Lees’ research into the forms of connectivity that go unnoticed. From the exchange of DNA between mother and fetus to the colonies of fungi that live on human skin, Lees’ invents a language that explores the ‘rolling curling or turning inward’ that brings distinct species together, in which living things and our connections to the ones we love unfold as little knots or collections of braided links that leak like wicker baskets.
