Eglė's blouse I 2026

AG505484
natural flower dye from Estonian, Lithuanian and Melbourne flowers on washi, sewing cotton
80 x 54 x 20 cm (h x w x d)

In the Lithuanian folktale Eglė the Serpent Queen, a young woman, Eglė, removes her clothing to go swimming with her sisters, only to find a snake curled up in her blouse when she returns. The snake only agrees to return possession of the blouse to Eglė if she will marry him and live with him beneath the ocean as his bride. Eglė unwillingly submits to his request and lives for many years beneath the sea. When she eventually returns to her birth land she finds herself torn between her birthplace and her new home, transforming into a spruce tree (eglė) at the end of the tale. Eglė’s story engages with themes of migration and transformation/re-invention in response to competing cultural alliances, a common experience for migrants, and particularly refugees, who are forced to start life anew in unfamiliar lands. 
This work, which utilises flowers from the Baltics as well as my local Melbourne neighbourhood and is informed by Baltic national costumes, imagines the type of blouse that Eglė might have worn, and which triggered the upheaval of her past life.

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