This project starts with an investigation into the term 'Shiksa', a derogatory term for a non - Jewish woman. As a cultural phenomena, she has been both revered as an exotic 'other', representing all that is forbidden to the Jewish male, and feared as a potential threat to the continuation of the Jewish faith.
The roots of the word relate to ideas of staining and blemishing, which I explored through draping and sampling with a traditional Jewish prayer shawl (tallit).
As a child of a Jewish father and a Jewish mother, my birthd interrupted the maternal chain of jewish descent. I explored this concept through 3D soft sculpture, scrambling the chain into various deformed forms.
'Shekets' - the hebrew root of the word, refers to a 'detested thing'. I related this to Julia Kristeva's concept of the abject, and the way in which society represses and projects its own undesirable animalistic aspects onto others in order to maintain a stable sense of self. This informed my characterisation of the archetypal 'Shiksa Godess'.
A childhood phobia of certain birds like the turkey (which also happens to be a symbol of fertility), relates to my own personal abject. What in my own unconscious was I projecting onto the bird?
The idea of the shiksa as a temptress made me consider the historical associations of femininity and temptation - evidenced most clearly in the Adam and Eve story. My mother's hometown of Southwell, Nottinghamshire happens to be the birthplace of the Bramley apple, which seemed to neatly mirror the biblical narrative.
I used the Adam and Eve story served to mythologise the meeting and marriage of my parents, therefore producing my own personal mythology, a child born of transgression.
Nick Curly - Underground (Dennis Ferrer Remix)
The idea of transgression was then explored through examples of cultural 'taboos' including homoeroticism, sexual deviance, underground queer culture
The imagery of underground queer culture seems to reclaim and celebrate the more repressed aspects of mainstream society, celebrating all that is 'abject'. This again informed the character development and styling of the 'Shiksa Goddess'.
