HOME ECONOMICS WITH A STUBBORN BLOOM
HOME ECONOMICS WITH A STUBBORN BLOOM
Singapore / 2021 / 11mins / English / English suntitles
The film is a re-staging of instructional texts from Home Economics Textbooks used in Singapore in the 1970s. It consists of three chapters outlining the correct manner for personal grooming, house-keeping and entertaining.
Shot in a highly stylized manner, the film takes cues from 1970s visual culture and films. In choreographed sequences, the actresses highlight the extreme performativity of femininity through gestures and costumes to a soundtrack
of highly gendered phrases taken verbatim from home economics textbooks. It also invites the viewer to reconsider the aesthetic joys of domesticity at a time when most of the world continues to experience stages of pandemic lockdown in their homes.