text/work by Dorthe Ingvardsen

One needle is just a needle. Not of much value except functional value. Not made from silver or gold or encrusted with diamonds.
But when I take a number of needles and give them a form, a meaning, and a story, the value of the object changes. It changes into value, not in terms of its function or material value, but in terms of value as image and as narration.
The metallic colour of the needle becomes a reference to silver as a material, here replaced by common mass produced needles in a way which questions the connection between the value of the object and the value of the materials with which is was made.
Another value of the needle as an object is its historical context. It represents a woman’s work: the sowing by hand.
It is a feminine work, an image of the constant occupation of women. A woman’s work is never done.
This too is incorporated in what I might call the image value of the needle.
But for me the needle is not only the tool of the ‘gentler sex’, it is an instrument of aggression, a sharp pointy object for penetrating a surface. And it fascinates me how having a mass of the object transforms this, and makes the needle decorative and harmless again.

Dorthe Ingvardsen- Needle Purse