Us
Shown at Tramway,Glasgow as part of the BeckettTime festival in 2000, a programme of Samuel Beckett plays and related works.
"Us" is a portrait of my parents constructed by themselves. I gave them some calico and asked them to make life size replicas of themselves using only whatever else they had in the house.My father stuffed himself with an old sleeping bag. My mother, I cant remember what she used.She hated her face and she turned it over at the last minute to draw a new one. She made herself some hair from black wool. They used their own clothes to dress the dolls and in my absence they took photos of themselves sitting beside their dolls and some of the cat sleeping on the lap of my mother's doll.My mother died on the 29th of December 2003.This portrait of her is accurate in its complexity.As her daughter, the artist/filmmaker, I can say its unflinching.
The dolls are universal effigies really, but their manner of construction and articulation is specific to the lives of the people who made them, my parents.
In loving memory of my mum. March 2004.
mandy mcintosh
