During the COVID-19 lockdown, Amy spent three months in her family’s residence, which provided her with the opportunity to revisit her relationship to her childhood home. Although Amy is proud of her working-class background, she never found comfort in the conservative socio-political environment in which she was raised. In this work, the artist confronts her conflicting feelings towards her domestic routes, as well as her experience of growing up in an environment in which she felt out of place, despite having a loving relationship with her immediate family. The resulting work was a spoken word poem titled Home.

The embroidered text in My Mother’s Childhood was taken from this poem, and it acts as a reference to the intimacy she shares with her family, as well as the source of her accent. Through the process of embroidery, Amy has attempted to excavate her guilt and explore the role that she now plays within her home.

Embroidery was chosen for this piece because of the domestic and feminine associations of the medium, which assisted in unravelling the tension between traditional and progressive perspectives within the home. Furthermore, the slow and laborious task of embroidery provided time for the artist to reflect and dwell on the sentiment of the text. The work does not fully resolve this tension, rather, it provided an outlet to work through her relationship to her home and give voice to her insecurities.