Curatorial Statement

Abstract

Curatorial Statement Lisa Moran (bio) Gate after gate seemed to close with gentle finality behind me. Innumerable beadles were fitting innumerable keys into well-oiled locks; the treasure-house was being made secure for another night. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own "Go on, go on, go on … !" Parodying the existential musings of Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Mrs. Doyle, the long-suffering house-keeper for Frs. Crilly and Maguire on Craggy Island, offers copious cups of tea and refuses to take no for an answer. Mrs. Doyle both embraces and subverts her role of housekeeper, using her domestic artillery—the all-important making of the tea—to test out and assert her role in a conservative, male household. In doing so she seems to be unknowingly acknowledging the potential of tea (or coffee) making and drinking to construct a neutral space of communication and exchange. Association of the feminine with interior space has a long tradition stemming from the consignment of women to such spaces. In ancient Rome women were relegated to the domus or domestic space, similar to the oikos in ancient Greece. These domestic spaces were in contrast to the masculine domain of the polis or public space. Medieval medicine employed architectural metaphors to explain the functions of the body, where "interior space, be it of the house or of the body, is a feminine place."1 We see this notion of interior space as feminine realized in the construction of medieval castles with their heavily fortified masculine exteriors and labyrinthine interior chambers designated for domestic purposes. Female accommodation was in the innermost and uppermost areas and at the greatest distance from the main entrance. Architecture was used to construct and reinforce a gendering of women's bodies that emphasized chastity and purity.2 Architectural devices such as towers, [End Page 9] staircases, walls, courtyards, and gardens were thus employed in the service of the segregation and enclosure of women. In Renaissance Italy the design of palaces such as the Palazzo Medici—the city dwelling of the ruling Medici family in fifteenth-century Florence—further reinforced this interiorization of domestic space and family life. Masculine business activities were conducted in the outer spaces of the palace. Access to the inner layers of the palace—the semiprivate spaces—indicated a person's status and value. Interior spaces were private, domestic, and feminine spaces. This interiorization of domestic space, in contrast to the outer masculine spaces of work and production, limited women's access to sources of knowledge associated with such spaces. Women were to be passive, invisible, absent, "equated with what cannot be thought."3 Associations of the feminine with the interior extend beyond the bounds of physical space to encompass abstract concepts such as psychological space. Inner psychic life—the unconscious and subconscious—is associated with emotion, disorder, and chaos, qualities also attributed to the feminine. On the other hand, outer life—the conscious self—is associated with qualities deemed masculine: order and control. To become insane is to lose control, to descend into the inner self and lose contact with reality and the outer world. Yet the inner, psychic space is also associated with creativity, imagination, and cultural development. The built environment is characterized by spatial arrangements that are associated with gender stratification.4 The dichotomy of masculine exterior and feminine interior continues to shape the contemporary built environment, and women continue to be associated with domestic space. Feminist architects in the 1920s and 1930s in the United States suggested housing designs that comprised kitchenless houses to free women from the drudgery of cooking.5 This well-intentioned but misguided gesture reflects a broader tendency to devalue the activities of domestic, feminine spaces, where liberation involves removing women from any association with such spaces. Masculine spaces are associated with production and knowledge, yet a crucial element of knowledge transfer is the opportunity for communication and discussion. Domestic spaces tend to be the locus of communication and discussion, the potential of which is limited due to their gender stratification. Rather than liberating women from such spaces and their attendant activities, consideration needs to be given to their inherent value and potential...