Safe Kitchen

Audrey Hansen

This piece plays with the relationship between safety and trust. By removing any and all danger from the “kitchen”, the inhabitants are relieved of their responsibility to be trusted, but the kitchen also becomes useless.

…

Safe kitchen is made up of large scale paintings of essential kitchen appliances on cardboard. These make up a kitchen space entirely out of cardboard cutouts. Because they are all cardboard cutouts, there is no risk of something going wrong you can’t burn yourself the stove/oven, there can’t be a gas leak, your food will  never get old or go bad in the fridge and you never have to call a plumber because nothing will ever break.  

 

There is an interesting relationship with the idea of safety and the idea of trust. Typically if someone isn’t trusted, things are made safe. This “kitchen” removes all trust from its inhabitants by making it completely unusable. It’s a step further from safety proofing a space and actually replacing the appliances with cardboard cutouts, enough to orient someone in the space of a kitchen with the imagery of the appliances but that’s it.  

 

What does it mean to safety proof a kitchen to this extent? What does it mean to take away the functions of a kitchen from its users? Does this kitchen actually care about the people using it or is it more of a taunt? 

 

I am including this piece because it reflects my exploration of how manipulating everyday objects I take for granted through material and scale can completely change a familiar space.  

 

 

Audrey Hansen’s Studio Visit