In this work, I explore the resilience and quiet intensity of a people shaped by wind, water, and tradition. The installation centers around a dress made from salvaged sails and worn fishing nets delicate above, raw and tangled below capturing the tension between grace and grit, elegance and endurance.

 

Wrapped in a sculpted harness of cast-off ropes and acrylic one, the figure echoes a local myth of a woman in white, guiding rudderless ships to shore. She becomes a symbol of unseen strength of the women who held the community together when the sea called the men away. Beneath the dress, reeds and willow trapped in netting speak of a life woven from labor and landscape.​

 

Surrounding the piece, three heavy ceramic anchors hang in balance glazed to appear rusted and weathered, as if pulled from the sea floor. Their sharp, barbed forms reflect both the region’s ceramic heritage and a guarded, lived-in spirit: rough, resistant, yet deeply magnetic.

 

Opposite the dress hangs a ship’s leeboard a sword made from reed and acrylic one, painted in silver and red, echoing traditional boat swords used to steer in shallow water. In performance, it becomes a shifting symbol: sometimes a weapon, sometimes a shield, a sail, or a tool for navigation. It speaks to how the wild becomes steerable through craft, how freedom emerges from discipline, and direction from resistance.​

 

Together, these works form a portrait of character, quiet strength, hard-won freedom, and a layered pride, beneath which a tender, rarely spoken vulnerability rests.