A small village in Suffolk would appear to be an ideal community for a young girl to grow up in. Louisa Webb’s bookwork Cocoon seeks to complexify that view. Much like a silky cocoon this small community preserves and swaddles from the kind of disruption that outside influences and progression might provoke, and, whilst no one is saying so out loud, there is a specific mould that women must inhabit. The process of conforming to this expectation can be uncomfortable for many, like Webb, who call this village ‘home’.
This work highlights ritual and repetition and alludes to the impact of traditional archetypes and unspoken expectations of what a woman should be and look like—battling stifling feelings of passive order and control result in the conflicting feelings underpinning this work.
