April 8th, 2019: Sharp Dresser

[xoxoxoBruce]

Tyeba is going to the fancy ball, so first she pulls out her trusty sewing machine.



Then she whips up some new clothes...



And accessories...



Then arrange for a sitter, take a bath...



Put on the new outfit and dance the night away. The end.
But wait, there’s more!

Bangladeshi artist Tayeba Begum Lipi recreates memory-laden objects by connecting thousands of razor blades, transforming the sharp metal tools into tennis shoes, wheels for strollers, sewing machines, sensuous fabrics, and more. Lipi’s sculptures address female marginality and speak most specifically to violence facing women in Bangladesh. The razor blades also references her memories of witnessing the birth of her nieces and nephews as a child growing up in the small town of Gaibandha, where the tool was often used during delivery.

I think that’s bullshit. I don’t see the connection between her “art” and Bangladeshi women being marginalized, and/or brutalized.
The razor blade is a tool used by both sexes... or is it all sexes now? It may well represent those things to her but expecting others
to make that connection is tenuous at best.

link

[Diaphone Jim]

A bathtub made out of razor blades?
I'm glad they didn't show the bannister.
I'll tell the story about the Army barracks if anybody asks.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm asking?

[Diaphone Jim]

There was a style of barracks that the US Army built by the thousands at dozens of bases all over the country and overseas, so this may have happened many times or never.
These buildings were typically two stories with lines of bunks down each wall and a few separate rooms for non-coms, etc., housing maybe 20 to 80 men.
Here is a good example:
http://brucerichards.com/army/barracks.htm
The latrines (bathrooms) varied, with the requisite urinal of course, but often with two rows (four or five each) of regular toilets side-by-side and knee to knee; took some getting used to.
The pics don't show the big, square, open shower room with 15 or more shower heads along the walls.
One wall of the sink room (shown) was common to the shower room, the other to the toilet room.
You can see the soap dishes above the sinks, but not the little slots that were above each one for the disposal of used razor blades. In the days of blue blades and such, two were often needed for a good shave, producing quite a few day after day.
The whole works was on slab with a crawl space with exposed piping and drains. The shower drains would often clog with high usage and whatever else sloughed off the young soldiers, making a sort of lake.
The story goes that one day in one of those many barracks, the weight of the water made the shower floor collapse, dumping perhaps a score of soapy, naked men (in an understandable panic to escape) onto the pile of many years worth of old razor blades.

That is why the bathtub in Bruce's post bothered me.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I think that’s bullshit. I don’t see the connection between her “art” and Bangladeshi women being marginalized, and/or brutalized.
The razor blade is a tool used by both sexes... or is it all sexes now? It may well represent those things to her but expecting others
to make that connection is tenuous at best.

An educated guess is that the use of blades during deliveries was to perform episiotomies. That lead me to wonder if part of the "violence" referred to could be Female Genital Mutilation since blades could be used for that. I did a few searches; but, didn't find Bangladesh listed among the countries noted for practicing FGM. The violence connection isn't obvious to me either and it had a better chance than being marginalized.