The world burns.Wars bloom, autocracies settle in with the weight of inevitability, the patriarchy presses on. Women’s emancipation, hard-won, has... Read More
The world burns.
Wars bloom, autocracies settle in with the weight of inevitability, the patriarchy presses on. Women’s emancipation, hard-won, has left the dating landscape fractured, a crisis of intimacy hiding in plain sight. Climate change unravels, hunger, exploitation everywhere. And yet, one need persists: the stubborn, tender, foolish search for… love.
Bring Me an International Lover borrows its title from Tracey Emin’s “I want an international lover that loves me more than the world”, and turns toward the quiet tragedy of heterofatalism: the despair and resignation many women feel when navigating the contemporary heterosexual dating market.
The work is deceptively simple in form: a ceramic reproduction of a sheet of paper, hand-painted with my phone number and marked by a lipstick kiss. It is addressed to every man who might encounter it. The intention is for my number to circulate through the (art) world, for the possibility — however remote, however absurd — of a man calling.
In the performative society we inhabit, there is little space for emotion in the public sphere, and even less for emotions of despair. We are taught to conform to a narrow range of expressions, to behave and speak in ways that align with social norms. Authenticity is often flattened, replaced by performative displays that mask vulnerability.This ceramic piece is a refusal of that erasure: a personal, painful note fixed in a medium that defies the fleeting pace of contemporary communication.
Once, important words were carved in stone to endure across centuries. Today, we send an email or a text, instantaneous, weightless, and quickly forgotten.By painting words onto ceramic, I reclaim the slowness and permanence of inscription.
This message will not vanish with a swipe; it will stay.
