angela ellsworth: seer bonnets a continuing offense

a seer bonnet image © designboom

angela ellsworth is an american multidisciplinary artist whose paintings, drawings, installations and performances explore the female body in its various contexts and constraints. her work considers subjects such as physical fitness, endurance, social ritual, religious tradition, performance art and american colonial history. ellsworth’s ‘seer bonnets: a continuing offense’ (2009-2010) refers to her rejected mormon heritage presented through series of antiquated pioneer women’s bonnets, constructed out of thousands of pearl-tipped corsage pins embedded into fabric with their points directed inwards. the small, fetish-like objects not only refer to the tradition of craft work in the home – women’s work – but also stand as disembodied memorials to the lives suffering cruelty, submission and control.

‘seer bonnets: a continuing offense’ is currently being exhibited as part of the 17th biennale of sydney.

decorative emblems are integrated into the bonnets image © designboom

detail of the corsage pins image © designboom

image © designboom

full view of a seer bonnet image © designboom

image © designboom

installation view of ‘seer bonnets: a continuing offence’ at the biennale of sydney image © designboom

seer bonnet image © designboom

seer bonnet (detail) image © designboom

up close of the pleats image © designboom

view of the tens of thousands of pins used to construct the bonnets image © designboom

image © designboom

all of the corsage pins are arranged to point inwards image © designboom

side view of one of the bonnets decorative detail image © designboom

image © designboom

image © designboom

detail of the ‘ribbons’ hanging down from each bonnet image © designboom

detail image © designboom

side view image © designboom

installation view image © designboom