Purging is a first-time performance artwork, whereby I indulge in dressing with layers upon layers of clothing until I become physically constricted by the clothes, and emotionally panicked with laboured breathing. At that point, I frantically remove the clothes until I am fully purged of them. This work is literally a struggle with clothing, in an attempt to strip off its gendered, classist and consumerist strongholds on the psyche.  Metaphorical overtones of over-consumption, poverty, beautification and bulimia surface in this work, which was first realized for PROCESS, in October of 2015.

Purging belongs to a developing body of work entitled The Laundry Series, which is taking on new forms and connotations from its original photographic manifestation, Dressing, Pinning, Folding, Spinning, and Slipping. The series has expanded to performative photographs entitled Tossing, and an a audio-video installation called Dressing and the performance artworks Purging and Helping: The Clothing Workshop. 

Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council are gratefully acknowledged for their support of The Laundry Series.