Laura Vickerson

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Fairy Tales and Factories
Farfield Mill – Sedbergh, Cumbria
rose petals, organza, dressmaker’s
pins & audio recordings
1999

Fairy Tales and Factories

Fairy Tales and Factories employs a disused Textiles mill in Northern England as both its site of production and installation. The large rose petal cape was produced, in part, with the assistance of local women stitchers, at Farfield Woolen Mill. Layered audio recordings of these women working forms part of the installation alluding to the ghostly voices mill workers but reclaiming the site as one of community and celebration. Referencing such fairy tales as Rumplestiltskin, which evolved out of the Industrial Revolution, the work explores this contradiction between fantasy and reality.