Passages, 2002
Air Mauritius blanket, orange peel, wood, acrylic pigment
150 x 110 x 2 cm
collection the artist

This work is about travel and imaginings. I started eating oranges at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute guesthouse whilst undertaking a six month Commonwealth Arts & Crafts Award  arts residency during 2001-2, and found myself unable to throw away the neatly quartered peels. I instead aligned them on my window ledge and saw they dried to be little boats. I began attaching little seats in them and painted them. Then I imagined them afloat in a blue ocean. I needed a blanket, a blue blanket. A student offered to bring me one. This was an Air Mauritius blanket. Perfect blue and perfect little boat-like shapes upon it- and then I realized what I had sewn. These boats look like the boats of Rodrigues from an airplane window. But I made the work before I flew to Rodrigues... Deja vu.