Catrina McGregor

Description:​

A long, red hand made of fabric is hanging. A hand holding a pair of scissors begins violently slicing and stabbing the hand until black sand pours from it. The sand pours from the palm, then the scissors cut off the fingers accelerating the loss of sand. Shots of a red bowl fill up with sand as the hand continues to be sliced. The hand soon becomes an empty husk and only when it is an empty husk, the scissors chop it from the wrist leaving it to fall into the bowl on top of the sand that was once within it. The long red limb the hand use to belong to swings effortlessly now that the sand is no longer weighing it down.​

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Concept:​

This piece was directly based on a life-changing memory from my youth. October 17th 2009, my sister and I came home from school to find our mother had passed away. I have a vivid memory of her cold, stiff hands - there was no life there anymore, I have always wondered where she went.

Upon making this video piece, I wanted to visualise life escaping the body. The more the piece is poked, the more death asserts itself – reminiscent on two young girls inspecting their sleeping mother but the more they inspect, they begin to realise that she is not sleeping.