Review: ‘I Am the Last Woman Object’
Millie Walton, Plinth
November 2024
In the late 1960s Nicola L made a series of pénétrables or wearable sculptures. These fabric suits, several of which are on display as part of a survey of her work at the Camden Art Centre, flatten the defining physical attributes of the wearers, stripping away the complications that come with gender, race and concepts of beauty. Today, this attempt at equalising might seem reductive particularly in the context of intersectional feminism, but there’s also something hopeful in Nicola L’s idealism. The pénétrables, like a lot of her work, not only invite play and dreaming, but position these activities as important and necessary tools for bringing about social change.