2017 Significant Others

Significant Others Part I

Pa Homestead, Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland

Significant others (alphabetised)

Avocado trees

Bumblebees

Chickens

Compost

Husband

Large Cat

Rabbit

Small Cat

Stepson

Vege Garden

Wildflower Garden

Worms

In general usage the term ‘significant other’ refers to an intimate relationship between two people and acknowledges not only that the gender of a person’s partner need not be specified, but also that a person’s primary intimate relationship may not be sexual in nature. It allows space for intimacy that is separate from sexuality and the strongly enforced normal of ‘romantic love’. Posthumanist writer Donna Haraway engages with this in her 2003 publication The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, people and significant Otherness, and places emphasis on the importance of relating as a two-way activity. Haraway suggests that “….all ethical relating, within or between species, is knit from the silk-strong thread of on-going alertness to otherness-in-relation.” (Haraway, 2003)

The two-part Significant Others project acknowledges the humans, animals and plants with whom I cohabit. each companion is observed tenderly, while seeking to remain alert to difference and striving to locate the singularity of each relationship. These moments of relationship are brought together in an experiential installation that allows us to glimpse the small intimacies that arise through the mundane daily acts of caring.