Historically documented as an aberration and a manifestation of a form of psychosis, an angry housewife was – more commonly then, but still, deceptively, now – perceived as something that must be attended to in the same manner as a domestic appliance in need of repair; the household’s functionality rests, inevitably, on theirs.
Liv Vinluan looks at the interstitial, fragile moments that allow for a house, prone to falling apart, to hold its forbearance. Through the amalgamation of tropes of womanliness, marriage, motherhood, family devotion, and an infrastructure that keeps them evergreen, Liv creates exquisite aberrations of what she names “peculiar expectations.” Symbols of pregnancy, homemaking, and eternal caregiving – phenomena unique to women – hold the weight of these expectations.
What happens then to their bodies?