TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS

Multiple venues, 2008-present day

Tom Hall draws from his child hood and his reliving of childhood through his two adopted children. He uses the idea of the child’s transitional object, item used to provide psychological comfort. For Hall the gun is an intrinsic symbol of boyhood and represents the struggle to hold onto, or at least not let go of some of these memories. Hall has anointed his weapon with gold, drawing the links between his own western youth and that of his sons’ cultural roots in Thailand. By using the Buddhist act of laying on of gold the venerated object gains higher symbolic status. The oversized cardboard M16 invites the audience to consider the relations of childhood, family power and status. It is these and the objects transience from boyish game to manly power that questions growing up now.