Description:Q6356

Transcript of Symrath Patti introducing her body of work at a hybrid workshop with DAAP at the Women's Art Library, 27 May 2023:

Body of work that includes a catalogue, which was later used in the "File Under Female" by Bella Milroy, from the exhibition 'Keeping it Together' held at Pavilion Leeds. It was part of the Complete Promise,the Promise of derral. A portrait was used in the catalogue and labelled ‘self portrait.’ I then added to it commenting on self portraiture and selling identity as ethnicity as self portraiture. Tearing away at one’s own image and how we fitted in culturally and how that was being monitored in the 80s and 90s. I wrote 'file under post-colonial female' since I was exploring and questioning the dominant gaze in a patriarchal society as well as police cultural surveillance. Bella was drawn to the image and the text that had been written by me. She decided to make work exploring the image and text; it became a collective experience.