Karen Golland  I  present perfect continuous  I  plastic tube beading and pink chains  I  curated by Rilka Oakley  I  Occupied

Had I known that 2020 would send me freefalling through my past in such a dramatic way, I would have packed better (possibly healthier) snacks. Instead, in the quiet alone of Covid-19, I pulled together my entire collection of second-hand flame polished plastic tubing and created a work about crossing (or not crossing) thresholds. The work is a series of hand-beaded curtains, referencing doorways from rental properties I have called home. Hanging a cheap two-dollar shop beaded curtain was a domestic ritual of mine. It was the first thing I did when I moved into a new rental property and the last thing I took away—a tacky (yet delightful) way to signify I was home. The doorway is a portal, a place where you can slip from public space to private space, exterior world to interior world. If you're bewildered by a global pandemic and have a heightened imagination and an excellent soundtrack, it can also be where you cross from one dimension into another.

Covid-19 changed how we experience time in a similar way to how trauma or grief changes time. No longer ordered by familiar routine, we are left to make sense of our days in other ways. This work is a meditation on time, a gentle ordering and reordering of time. It is everything that has happened in my life up to this moment. It is my present perfect continuous.

Photo credit Silversalt Photography

Photo credit for all images on this page Silversalt Photography