Unkept the title

When I first applied for the curatorial mentorship I called the exhibition 'Dirty Language' but I struggled with this title when the exhibition hit a fork in the road and went a different direction. It was no longer 'Dirty Language' - a raw, abject, loss, messy, mischievous, naughty, gutsy, dirty conversation. I felt this was 'too MONA' and Hobart's already got that so it needed to be a more subtle, softer, open, sensitive approach to the language of dirt and the unseen fibres that make up everyday life. I battled with the title and wrote my own lists trying to figure out what I was going to call this.

It wasn't until I went to Bruny Island with my mum for a mental health day off and we were walking along the beach talking through the title and trowing words around. It had to sound right and look good on paper. Mum asked, "So what is it about?" And as I described that it was about artists working with materials and spaces that are often unseen, forgotten or considered dirty and altering them ever so slightly to create moments of beauty and intrigue for the everyday passer-by. I liked the sound and strength of the word 'kept' and so we toyed with various sentences and word groupings; kept just so, keeping, to keep, kept still, quietly kept, etc. I kept coming back to 'kept'. I wanted the title to be the opposite to 'well kept' but I didn't want 'not kept' because this sounding too negative, this is where we fell upon 'unkept'. 

I researched the word and found that there were many meanings and ambiguity surround this word and its modern meaning. Many people used the 'unkept' instead of 'unkempt'. I liked that it was a bastardised term that created confusion. I let the title sit with me and the more I thought about it the more I attached I got to it. I spoke to people about the potential title and whenever I said it people asked, "Unkept or Unkempt?" and I responded, "Unkept." I talked to Colin about it and he asked the same question and wrote it down on paper. He said, "I like it. I like one word titles though." We chatted some more about its meanings and connotations and how it might unsettle people. I explained that I was okay with that. I liked that people would question it because in questioning something you search for an answer. It's not obvious to you, it keeps you guessing. I liked that it was associated to women not being 'well kept'. If a 'kept woman' describes a women that is maintained by a man, is an 'unkept woman' one that was not maintained or fulfilled by a man? I found this idea that a women needs to be 'kept' or maintained by a man/or men so strange. It was so opposite to everything I had ever known or been taught to believe in my lifetime but was something that existed, and not so long ago, for many women of my age. I wondered then what an 'unkept' women was and whether we are all now 'unkept' because we are free entities, independent individuals and maintained by ourselves. 

Being 'unkept' made me think of being dirty but free.