*Developed during the residency on the island of Ithaca, XII / Maid Chorus Interruption draws inspiration from Margaret Atwood's feminist retelling of Homer's Odyssey - "The Penelopiad" - with a focus on the recurring interruptions of the maids' chorus.

In Homer's “Odyssey”, the characters of twelve maids are presented singularly as labourers with little agency of their own, concerned exclusively with the comforts of others. From this position, they overhear the gossip of the palace, a knowledge that places them in the powerful yet precarious role of keepers of secrets; a position historically known to women. Yet their presence in one of the foundational stories of European literature remains largely absent. Their story ends tragically: at the conclusion of the “Odyssey”, they are violently murdered by Odysseus and his son Telemachus, hanged in silence to be soon forgotten.

“XII / Maid Chorus Interruption" (2025) takes the form of a chorus interruption of its own. Revisiting the figure of the mythological maid, the work reimagines her life on the island of Ithaca. In doing so, I reflect on my own position as maker within institutional structures shaped by precarity and the demand for constant production, where the artistic labour continues to remain unseen, undervalued, and underpaid.

Enmeshed within her mythological context, the maid re-emerges, refusing to remain silent or confined to the past.
Here, she is the artist labourer, the lover, the dreamer. Her hands, at last freed from caring for others, weave new stories of their own: those of closeness, rest, and desire; daily acts of refusal.