Lisa Snook

LISA SNOOK

Fairy Tales

24th September - 11th October 2009


‘We need to know who we were in order to surmise what we might become.’

- Angela Carter



‘’Fairy tales have been with us for thousands of years. The telling of these tales was an oral tradition and their narratives were traditionally disseminated through the female voice. The stories were without known originators and were a source of perennially refreshed entertainment for the poor.

When fairy tales first began to be collected, the same tale was often re-told again and again. Each time the tale adapts accordingly to its countries heritage and to its social, political and psychological climate.

Fairy Tales is an installation in two parts; in the smaller space ivy and forest debris fill the interior, in a reversal of the forest-ensnared castle of Sleeping Beauty, where, in this psychological drama, the forest grows from inside out. Laid out upon this is an old Victorian nightdress which has been embroidered with the words ‘It worried her that the sound and movement of the trees meant more than the evening news.’ The narrative here is a conduit of thought in a buried childhood memory, re-visited, re-told and expressed as a visual reality.

Inside the second space are three stories.Two are by the artist and one is by a writer in response to the artist’s requested proposition, ‘tell me a fairy tale’.

The solitary way in which the stories are heard reflects the autonomous milieu in which we live our lives today. But the effect is one that is tinged with intimacy.

I love the collective quality of this kind of story telling; it can draw from memory, myth, or experience. It often tells tales on the wrong-doers and vindicates the mistreated. The employment of fantasy and enchantment serves the teller well in being able to draw the listener into the seductive quality of what is, fairy tale.”

-Lisa Snook