Wash Day

Wash Day is an elegy to the quiet, persistent rhythms of domestic life. The old ritual of washing hanging on a line binds us to place, to season, to the past, and to continuity. The laundry becomes part of the landscape as it has done for generations. But while it’s a familiar sight, it’s a transitory and fleeting one: later (and not too much later, judging by the clouds) it will be gone. This transitory nature is also a fleeting glimpse into the past. It recalls a time when life was slower – when, in the absence of clothes dryers, people had no choice but to submit their laundry to the rhythms of the weather. But in this ritual, they were more connected to the land and the outside world. This work recollects this connection with the outdoors, and also our connection with the past. Captured here is not simply a day’s chore but a cycle of life, something generational. There is connection with parents, ancestors or past communities in this everyday ritual, a shared cultural memory enshrined in the actions of ordinary life.