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The Symbol of the Speculum

Collection: Gray's School of Art Collection
Object Type: installation
Artist/Maker: Hamrock, Marie Chantal
Date: 2020
Media/Materials: copper cylinder, latex rubber, rope
Dimensions: overall: 30 cm x 56 cm
Awards: RGU Contemporary Art In Practice Purchase Award

Description:

The symbol of the speculum is deeply embedded in Marie-Chantal Hamrock’s work. The word speculum emanates from Latin meaning both mirror and to look. A speculum is both a gynecological instrument and a mirror. It has served as a navigational instrument in her practice, steering her towards themes such as sexuality, mysticism and post-humanism. In the past, she has used video, performance and installation to address such themes.

Using the imagery of the buoy, the moth and the speculum, Hamrock seeks to reveal the ways in which the female body is at once mythologised and endowed with esoteric mysticism, while at the same time is deemed as other or alien. She is fascinated with the role that fictions play in our everyday lives and felt compelled to present the stories that have formed in her mind as fact.

Having spent the last four years of her life in Scotland, she has used facts of her life to create a kaleidoscopic narrative explaining her connections with both Ireland and Scotland.A manufactured representation of a buoy found at sea and used as a feature.in ABDRG2021.4.1.


The symbol of the speculum is deeply embedded in Marie-Chantal Hamrock’s work. The word speculum emanates from Latin meaning both mirror and to look. A speculum is both a gynecological instrument and a mirror. It has served as a navigational instrument in her practice, steering her towards themes such as sexuality, mysticism and post-humanism. In the past, she has used video, performance and installation to address such themes.

Using the imagery of the buoy, the moth and the speculum, Hamrock seeks to reveal the ways in which the female body is at once mythologised and endowed with esoteric mysticism, while at the same time is deemed as other or alien. She is fascinated with the role that fictions play in our everyday lives and felt compelled to present the stories that have formed in her mind as fact.

Having spent the last four years of her life in Scotland, she has used facts of her life to create a kaleidoscopic narrative explaining her connections with both Ireland and Scotland.
Object Number: ABDRG2021.4.2