Ester Partegàs

This sculpture, part of the Baskets series, recreates large-scale domestic plastic baskets. On the one hand, they appear as sensual and imaginative constructions for the body to hide, curl up or rest on; on the other, half broken and partially repaired, they stand as architectural hybrids worthy of apocalyptic times. Betraying their promise of organization and order, and by extension, our intimate notions of safety and security, they embody future ruins. The works want to consider the unsustainable nature of our material culture and habits and their implications for living, while assuming that care implies repair, security implies precariousness, construction heralds destruction, and waste value.
Similarly, referring to the laundry basket, Partegàs creates shelters or traps that have a sense of play and improvised precariousness. The chipboard forms are built and deconstructed, braced and braced. Planes of plywood, cardboard, papier-mâché and plaster are pierced by exaggerated portholes, both mimicking the laundry basket motif, but essentially emphasizing the porosity of the form, leaving an opening for the viewer to project into. . There is an unresolved tension between tenderness and control, guardian and supervisor. Her work calls into question the life of the commodified object and the work associated with it, be it a basket of dirty clothes or the sewn garment. What has traditionally been known as "women's work" is here given new life and meaning, resisting innate gender associations.