Working
Definition:
For me, the feminine uncanny draws
(consciously or unconsciously) upon, and doubles back on Freud’s
psychoanalytical concept of the uncanny as a way to problematize normative constructs
of the female in a patriarchal space.
The feminine uncanny appears in the evocation
of something unsettling and uncomfortable. It disturbs the normal and undermines
notions of stability.
By replicating
empowering aspects of the (un)homely the feminine uncanny objects to the repressive
qualities of the home. The feminine uncanny exploits the duality of the unheimlich and heimlich to create an indirect resistance to and salutation to
both. In doing so the feminine uncanny creates a feminist tension around the
domestic.
The feminine uncanny is evoked in the placing
together in a space the strangely familiar materials of the female (body) and
the everyday object so as to reimagine their inter-relationship. Thus the feminine
uncanny troubles the corporeal and psychic identity of the feminine in order to
dislocate patriarchal authority. This reimagining of gendered body and everyday
object suggests the development of a non-repressive language of the domestic
that enables a different kind of femininity to emerge.
