Margaret Dragu

Bio

Margaret Dragu celebrates her 50th year as a working artist. Her favourite material is still the body despite/because of her bionic status as a grateful owner of two hip replacements.

Projects

Secret Kitchen (1995) is an installation-performance that employs slides, text, dance, xerox, paper-maché, found objects, borrowed objects and music. The kitchen was covered with xerox copies of images of a famous rent strike in Harlem that took place in the 1960s and images of mothers and their children in distress.

The performance used a series of monologues from Momz Radio (1991), a radio show that aired on Vancouver Co-Op Radio showcasing interviews with mothers about their experiences with motherhood. This research led to the publication of Mother Talk Back (1992) a book co-edited with Sarah Shead and Susan Swan published by Coach House Press.

About Secret Kitchen, Dragu states: “ I call it Secret Kitchen as caregivers (usually women) of young children who are fulltime or parttime at home are often “stuck” in the kitchen and the work they do at home is often invisible or secret. I am bringing the kitchen and the people in it out into the open.”