Happy Hour in the Harmful Factory

2019

​

‘Happy Hour in the Harmful Factory’ is a bright-white neon sign of the work’s title that began life as a simple phrase communicated to Annabel’s partner, by a colleague (based remotely in Eastern Europe) demonstrating concern for her cold. ‘Have a glass of milk, as in the harmful factory’, leading to the obvious question ‘what is the harmful factory’?

​

For Annabel the neon artwork is a feminist response to the futile optimism of milk as a cure-all. The brightness and clarity of the resulting work created in the artists' own handwriting contrasts with the casual tone of this playful pun said in passing, the work capturing in writing something transient and fragile and maybe even lost in translation.

​

This work was made for Annabel's 2019 exhibition for Scarborough Art Gallery and has been included in Electric Fence at the Usher Gallery as a reference to Annabel's wider practice, referencing wider concerns around extremism, feminism, borders, labour and the female body.