Feely Box

   The language of touch.....what words do we use to describe that sensation? In discussion with several surgeons I have noticed a particular type of verbage, both medical and poetic that is used to describe the sensation of touching living tissue, healthy and diseased. As they spoke I noticed how they looked away from what they were touching, seeing it inside their mind instead.The hand was held flat with all the fingertips being employed at once.

  This was a queue for me to make a piece that explored this facility and could be used by those who were not medically trained or were thinking of going into medicine.

 Colour could not be ignored though so I chose a palette of grey and ivory with a dash of fleshy pink and red. This was to see if the way someone touched the piece would change according to the colours.

   To enact the unseen element I made two 'pockets', the 18th C. kind which would have hung from a belt worn inside the clothes ('Lucy Locket lost her pocket'..etc). One was all in ivory silks the other in brown and blue with a fleshy coloured metal organza lining. Each also had textured detail just inside the pocket opening.

  To go with the pockets are currently twenty nine paired cocoons of silk each with a foam material inside.I chose packaging foams and kitchen materials both for their familiarity and for their approximation to organic materials. It was during an experiment with one surgeon where I realised the potential for parallel understanding with these ordinary pieces of industrial fabric. In their different densities and textures they can feel like inflammation, tumours, cysts and old scar tissue.

The cocoons can be handle individually to discuss how to touch and examine something, doubled up to recreate specific conditions, hidden inside the pockets or pressed against a large foam 'echo' block which gives a different 'reading' altogether.

 Some have a few extra small cocoons inside and there is also a pin cushion to go with them all. The pins can be pushed carefully into the foams to see what it is to have to stitch these materials; thus giving a good approximation to surgical extended touch.

    Lastly a chatelaine of manilla tags with all the comments made by surgeons who have examined the piece (top photo). The Feely Box has already been used to engage young adults interested in going into medicine at a yearly event at the Wellcome collection as part of the Saturday Studio programme.

 Many thanks so far to surgeons Colin Bicknell, Chris Peters, Cara Baker, Celia Riga, Sam Gallivan, Laura Coates, Tamzin Cuming and Roger Kneebone. Also to Rachael Matthews, textile artist and Angela Oakes, masseur and yoga teacher.