Through this window is a home

In an assemblage of images, colours and scents, former student Harvey Nichol and Michaela Bridgemohan examine the Peacock Chair as a source of conceptual inspiration.

Through this window is a home takes notice of how colonialism shrouds non-European cultures as mythic and/or non-existent. With its own speculative history, the Peacock Chair emerges as a phantom–an emblem of opulence and authority haunting domestic spaces. What is known is that it was born from the fingertips of incarcerated Filipina women who wove them in the early 1900s. Over the years, this chair has been infused with a variety of pop culture lore, including its association with figures like Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party, before his assassination. 

Through Nichol’s referencing of Philippine folklore, Manila prison blocks and Bridgemohan’s use of West African craft, Through this window is a home explores themes of invisible labour and cultural erasure that collide with forms of resistance and privilege.