'Hooks'

​Sculptural Object​

​

Various Sizes​

Themes: Institutional control on language, access to language, language as an includer / excluder.

Throughout my work on language, the hook has become a metaphor for the institution and an indicator of it's control over language historically and culturally.

Previously, access was only permissable through middle class scholars, or religious bodies which where nearly wholly masculine. On the rare occasion women were permitted access and openly taught, there was an attitude that it was considered a waste of education and time to educate a woman.

Language can be understood in different ways depending on the lens in which we view it.  It has been largely constructed by men, accessed by men and the only means through which others could attain access.

In this context the words that were being accessed where subject to reader bias and the understanding of the text constructed by the reader’s opinion / understanding of the text.

The hooks that point downward indicate the 'incompetent' or 'disfunctional' symbol of control.  It symbolises the more recent relationship institutions have with language, unable to keep hold of the access which in days gone by was only accessed by an elite and specific subset of society deemed eligible through gender or affluence.