HNH 1988: Oz Slippers

2008, sequined slippers, supermagnets, plexi pedestal

Size 5-1/2, Unique (destroyed in a flood, 2021)

 

+ 
2 pairs WITHOUT magnets, includes plexi shoebox

Sizes 6 and 10 (private collections)

Inside label unique to each pair

 

This world is not my home. I’m just passing through. – Warren Defever

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In Salman Rushdie’s At the Auction of the Ruby Red Slippers, bidders at an auction vie for Dorothy’s shoes. The winner inherits a genie that, when tapped three times together and iterating “There’s no place like home,” has the power to transport its owner anywhere. In a world of ever-shifting borders and tenuous identity, the question and crisis posed by Rushdie is of course, “where is home?”

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Wherever home is, you’re not getting there in this HNH pair. Embedded beneath the sequins are repelling supermagnets that render the task nearly impossible, at least without twisting an ankle.

Nonetheless, what we long for may we always find a way...