The piece has a title now: Residue

In this project the familiar act of washing (which in fact constitutes the body as familiar: ritually establishing borders, its propriety, its presence) is displaced by the presence of another person’s contact located in the bar of soap. This project addresses the habit of washing as it constitutes the self in relation to the body, questioning ‘cleanliness.’ By intervening into the space of the home (habitation) and into the ritual of self-reflexive washing, I hope to produce an oddness: raising the spectres of the bodies that have used the soap on the skin of the person using it, creating an uncanny doubt in the confidence of achieving a sterile isolation of self from other. This work researches how the fear of contamination circulates through touch – comparing the protecting safe touches of ones own, private bar of soap with the unknown, uncomforting touches of a stranger’s body in the most intimate of circumstances.