hayley white

Mixed media found objects, 244cm x 122cm 58cm. 1998.

Public toilets bring together the social civic space and the personal, the ultimate in public service and basic convenience. Creating a space which reminds us as humans of our basic nature (eat, shit and procreate) and simultaneously the heavy construct of society, its rules, systems and processes. It is the place where the organic and inorganic meet in a public facility.

The infrastructure of society that provides us with the public convenience and the bodily and psychological aspects excretion is a complex and interesting line of enquiry. It raises many questions that this work attempts to hold up.

The work plays heavily with lesser explored toilet psychology, gender divide, primal vandalism and graffiti, and misuse of the space for cottaging, as a primitive rebellion from social rules.

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The work was shown in Milton Keynes in 1998 for a 10 day period before the work was dismantled. No images remain of the works, collected images as artist research.