With this ring

Child marriage continues to be practiced in various cultures, often justified by a girl’s physical maturity and presumed readiness for pregnancy, and sometimes even earlier – out of sheer economic necessity.

The artist`s engagement with the subject began after reading a news report on the death of Rawan, a nine-year-old girl from Yemen who died on her wedding night from internal bleeding. These events are silenced within their own communities – often remote, often inaccessible – and rarely draw the sustained attention of human-rights advocates.

The work aligns itself with the voices calling for an end to this abuse. It consists of a multitude of handmade dark rag dolls – an inadequate and sorrowful restitution for a childhood innocence and joy that cannot be reclaimed. The dolls are sewn into a long bridal veil that threads through a heavy, truncated cone of soldered iron rings, only to emerge crushed.