Inspired by Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit (1964), my photographic series, ‘Break Piece’ mimics instructional, Fluxus-esq art as it depicts the assault unharnessed upon a ceramic bra. As the destruction of the brassiere denotes to feminist theory, the work gains meaning through subject matter.

Historically, the brassiere functioned to support, constrain, reveal, cover and enhance the appearance of the breast. The Miss America Protest in 1968 involved a ‘Freedom Trash Can’ where people burnt all ‘instruments of female torture,’ including bras. Thus, the brassiere has been translated into a symbol of female restraint and ultimately its destruction attempts to embody the challenge against this concept. The denial of expectation also attempts to evoke surprise in audiences, when they realise that the bra depicted is not soft but hard and solid.

The blurring of images due to movement exemplify the urgency that is felt and thus projected. It attempts to put the viewer in a state of unease, as they can feel the anger and anxiety through the images. Such mimics the anarchist approach to social change, as all is left in a total state of chaos and destruction, as is seen in the last image with ceramic sinewy practically exploded in the black abyss. The image layout shows the succession and progression of destruction, probing questions of where we are socially and where we might be soon. In this way, the series become a performance of sorts.

I began this assignment knowing it was going to be an instructional-type artwork. Yoko Ono’s 1964 performance, ‘cut piece’ translates to social experiment as each of the audience is invited one-by-one onto the stage to cut off a piece of her clothing to keep as a souvenir. This was my main inspiration for this work, and the shift in each image attempts to mirror the progression from Ono being fully clothed in the beginning of the work, and her half exposed at the end. It is this change and movement of ideas I attempted to replicate.

Initially, I was going to take a series of landscape photos or bodily photos, but its cliché quality made me decide against it. The idea for my final work came to fruition as a result of another assignment. In sculpture, I created ceramic bras and this project foregrounded the research for this assignment.