Erin Shaw

Purgatory

Purgatory is molded around the idea of my personal relationship to religion and catholicism. Growing up catholic, I’d worry about hell and feel discomfort when repenting my sins to a priest. “Forgive me father for I have sinned,” felt sexualized in my mind, corrupted. This sacred thing has felt so dirty to me. Catholicism has a dark cloud around it, a veil, that masks itself with the love of God but feels molded by fear and sin. In result, my research was directed more towards depictions of the devil and sin during the middle ages. The people feared something so much that they became obsessed with it.

This piece consists of a skirt and top hand printed with sewn pockets. Within the pockets are my own personal sacred objects inspired by Medieval oddities such as amulets, surgical tools, toture devices, chatelaines, pill boxes, and baby rattles. Through the use of analog practices combined with contemporary digital processes, an unsettling space is created that blends both past and speculative worlds. I chose this form of documentation because the general exhibition of historical pieces in museums takes away their significance through the use of vitrines and white walls. The physical display on my garment provides intimacy to the information, viewers have to get close in order to see. The fact that they are displayed on a body makes the information feel more alive. I, too, am an object, a vessel of information, being handled and examined as such.

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