Hard Lines is an autobiographical installation that uses sentimentality, nostalgia and revenge to navigate the aftermath of an abandoned relationship, while questioning what it means to inhabit a body stigmatised by the overhanging spectres of class, disability and menopause.

Where do long, sleepless nights lie within the mire of the late thirties? Where do heartache and longing reside amid the frenzy of shame? When the body begins to give up the ghost, as it has threatened to do since birth – particularly now in it’s most dire of hours – how does this haunting not become consuming?

In her autobiography, Hilary Mantel writes, “I began this writing in an attempt to seize copyright in myself.” This work is an exercise in doing the same: drawing an edge around experience and representing it as fact.

Hard Lines includes a publication featuring an interview between Lisette May Monroe and Hannah Proctor, alongside a series of poems by Rachael Allen. The publication designed by Jason Kerley can be dowloaded here.

The exhibition was accompanied by a series of works presented on poster and billboard sites across the city in partnership with BUILDHOLLYWOOD Scotland.

Exhibition photographs by Matthew Arthur Williams
Billboard photographs by BUILDHOLLYWOOD
Video walkthrough by Nat McGowan
Publication design by Jason Kerley