When Your House is on Fire

Item

Title: When Your House is on Fire
Creator: Prenger, ML
Date Created: 2024
Relation: ML Prenger's Audiovisual Reflection on "An Intimate Space"; An Intimate Space / "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"; When Your House is on Fire; By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
Contributor: Smart, Elizabeth, 1913-1986
Date: 1945
Description: At the centre of this decoupage is a cottage, slightly out of focus. A sharp silver object hangs above like a guillotine. A windowpane reveals the interrogation scene where the lovers were arrested under anti-adultery laws. Smart uses the Song of Songs to interrupt the text (using brackets), disrupting the officer's questioning. Smart steals the sacred object from the hands of power, repurposing it to form a shield of armour. By tearing up images of the wilderness, isolation and cabins to craft my smouldering image, I felt a similar defiance (and everything fell together).