Awakening the Witches
‘Domestic Pleasure’ plays with the tropes of the witch, reminding us of the urgency for transformation during these precarious times. The broomstick presents us with a symbol of the oppressed powerful woman who was demonised because of her sexuality. The long tresses of hair cascading from the broom’s surface are representative of feminine desire, recalling imagery of ‘the temptress’ with long flowing locks who was exiled on account of her lustful sins. The broomstick was said to have been used as a device which 16th century women would anoint with liquid mandrake, a plant lethal to ingest orally. They would then insert the stick into themselves to ‘fly’. The broomstick represents the mundane domestic object that could be repurposed to satisfy women’s desires and perverse pleasures.