Offering
Year: 2021
Medium: Sculpture. Blades from police-confiscated knives and scissors
Dimensions: 60 x 60 x 40cm
Exhibition: Blunt Blades, November 2021 – November 2022. The Higgins Bedford. Bedford. UK. This exhibition is realised with the support of The Higgins Bedford, Bedford Borough Council and Arts Council England.
Offering (2021) is a sculpture made from the blades of varying scissors and knives, which are carefully stacked on top of one another to form an offering bowl. Offering bowls are bowls or plates that are used to hold offerings the Gods and Goddesses. According to Buddhism for example, offerings are an antidote to negative attachment and greed. By shaping the blades that are commonly associated to violence, into an object that offers many people a sense of calmness, Lebrusan explores the ways materials carry inherent meanings and how those meanings can be reshaped.
ABOUT BLUNT BLADES. THE EXHIBITION
Often provocative, artist Arabel Lebrusan engages with material culture and the feminine tactile environment, looking into wider issues of power relationships, exploitation and inequality. Blunt Blades extends Lebrusan’s study on material culture, exploring our complex relationships with knives and their varied roles. Blunt Blades began in 2013 when Bedfordshire Police gave the artist 3 crates of confiscated knives and other artefacts. Transforming the metal from these confiscated objects into works that could evoke other emotions, the display examines the ways materials carry inherent meanings and how those meanings can be reshaped. Lebrusan’s artworks, in their myriad forms, do not offer answers to the many issues they raise. Instead, they invite contemplation about object materiality, production of meanings and our shared humanity.
