The Brewery of Eggshells is an Irish Folklore tale about a young mother who believes that her child has been switched with a faerie changeling. With the help of the Wise Woman of the village, she gets her child back.
This story is based on real women of 1700’s and 1800’s Ireland. Women in Irish folklore are often villainised for having problems that created discomfort in a society that did not understand alot about women’s health and mental health. I wonder who these women really were and if their stories would be told differently if they took place today.
In my project I examine these archetypal characters; the young mother, the wise woman and the faerie witch, and show them in a series of non-narrative images. Using the time spent creating the images, and the audiences’ time looking at the photos, as a way to pay tribute to the women of 1700-1800’s Ireland that struggled with real issues but were misunderstood and misrepresented in folklore.
The images featured show natural makeup on the young mother, fantasy makeup on the faerie witch, an old age prosthetic on the Wise Woman and a prop creature of a changeling baby, made with latex.