Chelsea Swan

I have taken so long making this lampshade I barely remember why I started it.

I saw it all sad an alone in Emmaus in Bolton and bought it for £3.50 with the idea that i could make the poor discarded thing beautiful and give it purpose again.

In my mind the way that capitalism is patriarchy and visa versa. The way we treat consumer objects is the same and we treat women and again visa versa. There is a lot to unpack there. For now I just want to say that I know how the lampshade feels. I don’t just use things that have been left to the charity shops because they are cheep or eco friendly, although I am poor and I can’t do much else for the environment. I also feel like all these things, these once loved and beautiful and full of hope things, these things full of potential, which were intended to improve the world have been left and forgotten and their potential dismissed. These things were meant to express a person’s hopes, dreams, personality. They were a kind of symbolic language that expressed an identity, a way of life. Maybe they were truly loved once. I use all the unused gems and sequins and threads. I try to put them back in the life they should have had. We discard too easily and forget the love we had too quickly. Things cant just be forgotten, they can’t just be forgotten. If the want TV or social media you know we like new and shiny, young and different, not too different though. Everything is tailored to manipulate our consuming tastes. And we do treat women, their image, their shininess, as a consumer item. They are objects, and objects aren’t real, they don’t have feelings, if you break them you can get another one. There are lots of things you can do to an object and not have to worry about hurting it or the damage.

Anyway it’s very sparkly.