Boob Series & Topsy/Turvy

Boob Series & Topsy/Turvy 

Megan HANSEN-KNARHOI 

University of Auckland 

72 

Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 

4:2 (2006), 72-81 

Megan Hansen-Knarhoi completed her Masters degree at Elam School of Fine Arts, 

University of Auckland in November of this year. The Boob series, which is featured 

in this issue of the Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, was part of Hansen- 

Knarhoi’s end of year exhibition at Elam, installed in the gentleman’s toilets. The 

crochet work for which Hansen-Knarhoi is known transformed the all too ordinary 

locale of this exhibition into an almost welcoming and warmly fuzzy environment, 

with ‘boobs’ adorning dirty sinks and window sills, looking very much (as Hansen- 

Knarhoi comments) like tasty ‘tit-bits’. Though a recent graduate, Hansen-Knarhoi’s 

work has been discussed in several journals including Art New Zealand and Artnews 

New Zealand. Her website: www.mrhk.co.nz features a gallery of her work and links 

to these articles. Below Megan discusses her work, with particular reference to the 

Boob series. The other work featured in GJAPS is Topsy/Turvy (2004), created for the 

exhibition ‘Remember Me’, curated by Tobias Berger for the Sao Paulo Biennial in 

2004. Topsy/Turvy links in with many of the concerns explored through the Boob 

series, particularly those of race, and links between ethnicity and sexuality. 

Topsy/Turvy dolls were originally created in the United States in the pre-Civil War 

era, and featured white dolls with the head and torso of a black doll under their 

skirts. With Topsy/Turvy, Hansen-Knarhoi offers a New Zealand re-interpretation 

with all of the loaded connotations that this invites. Both Topsy/Turvy and the Boob 

series are comfortingly woolen, though this instinctual response to the medium 

belies the powerful impact of the interpretations and association that surround the 

work. 

www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/gjaps

Private Parts and Social Sexuality 

Crochet is begun by placing a slip-knot loop on a crochet hook, pulling another 

loop through the first loop, and so on to create a chain. The chain is either 

turned and worked in rows, or joined end-to-end and worked in rounds. 

Rounds can also be created by working many stitches into a single loop. 

Stitches are made by pulling one or more loops through each loop of the chain. 

At any one time at the end of a stitch, there is only one loop left on the hook. 

During the completion of a stitch there may be multiple loops on the hook 1 . 

Some of the work I have developed this year: White Boob / Black Boob, Yellow Boob / 

Brown Boob and Red Boob / Tan Boob, is the manifestation of my interest in and 

continuing research into sex, sexuality, ethnicity, colour stereotypes and signifiers 

and religion. The Boob works are exhibited in groups of thirty-three, each boob duo 

joined ‘back to back’, and framed by a different lace edging, the patterns of which 

come from an old Semco 2 pattern booklet, creating a type of double sided cameo. 

White Boob / Black Boob is framed by pink variegated cotton, Yellow Boob / Brown Boob 

bordered by yellow variegated cotton and Red Boob / Tan Boob with a Red variegated 

surround. 

The Boob has literal, metaphorical and spiritual significance. The word ‘boob’ 

is literally a slang term for the two soft fleshy milk-secreting glandular organs on the 

chest of a woman, the breasts. Boob is also used as a name for an ignorant or foolish 

person and can mean to commit a faux pas or a fault or make a serious mistake. 3 The 

television is sometimes referred to as the boob tube; the implication being that 

television programming is foolish, induces foolishness, or is watched by foolish 

people. 4 Incidentally, the television is also a forum where a number of literal and 

metaphorical boobs can be seen. Boob tube also refers to an item of clothing worn by 

women, a shoulder-less, armless, strapless garment, which is kept in place through 

elastication, making it particularly figure-hugging around the breasts. Words, 

together with the objects they refer to and name, continue to be an integral part of 

my art practice. My intention is that my work, in conjunction with seemingly simple 

titles, opens up a multiplicity of meanings and interpretations. 

One such associated interpretation stems from Christian iconography. St. 

Agatha of Sicily is one of the most highly venerated virgin martyrs of Christian 

antiquity. St. Agatha dedicated her life to God and resisted men. Senator Quintianus 

persecuted St. Agatha, seeking revenge after his protestations of love were 

continuously spurned, and she was sent to a brothel, a prison and finally tortured as 

punishment for her unrelenting Christian faith. One of the tortures St. Agatha 

supposedly suffered was to have her breasts cut off, and she is often depicted 

carrying her breasts on a plate. It is thought that the blessing of the bread that takes 

place on her feast day may have come from the mistaken notion that she was 

carrying loaves of bread. 5 The Boob series has been described as looking like tasty ‘titbit’ 

treats to eat. 

Colour also plays an integral, significant and symbolic role. White, Black, 

Yellow, Brown, Tan and Red can all be used as metaphors for human skin colour; 

‘black’ as the primary colour metaphor for race is the classification of persons of 

Hansen-Knarhoi/Private Parts 73

African and Australian Aboriginal ancestry, and persons of European ancestry as 

‘white’. Similarly, persons of East Asian descent have been called ‘yellow’, Native 

Americans have been called ‘red’, South Asian, Polynesian, Mexicans and other 

people of Hispanic descent are commonly called ‘brown’ people. The Sanskrit word 

for ‘caste’ (var a) has several literal meanings including ‘colour’; Brahmins, whitesymbolizing 

Sattva; Kshatriyas, red-symbolizing Rajas; Vaishyas, yellowsymbolizing 

Rajas; Shudras, blue or black-symbolizing Tamas. 6 

Another equally important factor eluded to by the Boob series is the link 

between ethnicity and sexuality, the sexualised nature of ethnicity: ‘the sexualisation 

of the black-white colour line. 7 Ethnicity can be a signifier not only of somatic or 

physical (racial) differences, but also of differences in language, religion, region, or 

culture. 8 There are several sources of ethnic boundary stability and instability; 

arguably the greatest among them are gender, class and sexuality. Hetero-normative 

ethno-sexual stereotypes are nearly universal depictions of self and other as one 

gazes inside and across virtually any ethnic boundary. 9 The sexual self is reiterated 

through, given meaning by, and compared in relation to a set of norms, that is white, 

thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian and financially secure. 10 Many lesbians 

and gay men of colour have noted with much irony and bitterness that they are 

erased at best, stereotyped and demonised at worst, both inside and outside their 

ethnic communities. The sexualisation of ethnicity is a ubiquitous, universal feature 

of ethnic relations. 11 

Hal Foster refers to the theory of Jean Laplanche in discussions of the 

representation of the breast in art. Laplanche developed the notion that all primal 

fantasies are, ‘enigmatic signifiers’, concerning the (Freudian) fundamental questions 

of our existence- these questions being, ‘where do I come from?’ ‘which sex am I?’ 

and ‘what is this strange stirring within me?’. The quintessential enigmatic signifier 

according to Laplanche, is the maternal breast, which the infant sees as a separate 

entity, an identity, as an other, and central to the formation of the self. 12 

Although this year my work is not strictly pornographic, according to radical 

feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, it would be deemed so. Attempts have been 

made to utilize the concept of ‘pornography’ as a basis for legal control, notably in 

the US with a civil rights ordinance drafted by two prominent feminist authors, 

Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. The ordinance sought to define 

pornography as, ‘the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through 

pictures and/or words that includes … Women’s body parts – including but not 

limited to vaginas, breasts or buttocks –exhibited such that women are reduced to 

those parts…’ 13 Radical feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, Robin Morgan and 

Catherine MacKinnon argue that pornography eroticises the domination, humiliation 

and coercion of women, reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in 

rape and sexual harassment and contributes to the male centred objectification of 

women. Roban Morgan is famously quoted as saying, ‘pornography is the theory, 

rape is the practice.’ 14 However, whilst not denying there is unhealthy pornography 

in circulation, what radical feminism denies is that women have a choice in both the 

role they play within pornography and their consumption of it, along with its use 

and production. Such extreme examples of imagery encompassed by pornography, 

also denies the individual the right to freedom of speech. It denies that pornography 

is often created by consenting adults who do it for various reasons- for their own 

74 


sexual gratification all the way through to doing it as a form of employment. 15 What 

is forgotten sometime, perhaps, is that pornography and sex can be enjoyable and 

something worth celebrating and decorating. 

Pro-sex feminism recognizes sexual freedom as an essential component of 

women’s freedom. Further to that is the embracing of the entire range of human 

sexuality between consenting adults. It is argued that only by accepting the validity 

of all sexual orientations will women attain full sexual freedom. The central project 

of queer theory is to challenge the assumption of heterosexuality as the norm. This 

provides an alternative to the patriarchal control of sexuality. There are as many 

different sexual practices and sexualities as there are cultures to inspect. 16 This is 

what Carla Freccero meant when she wrote of the desire for a social sexuality, where 

all forms of sexuality can one day be socially acceptable. 17 The body is never fixed or 

simple in its significance but always fully lived, in process, and contingent. Our body 

both makes us subjects and makes us objects for others. The body is not a separate 

entity, but given significance through unavoidable interaction outside of itself. 18 

The Boob duos were stimulated by my research into sexuality, ethnicity and 

religion. A blending of these were achieved through creating specifically coloured 

and shaped objects and labelled using homonyms. The works are referenced by and 

reference unconscious formative processes, obsession and ritual, ethnicity, 

pornography and feminism. 

NOTES 

1 “description of crochet” in Wikipedia, nd, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crochet (07 

September 2006). 

2 Anon, Crochet Edges:Semco Book 3, Semco Art Needle Work, Blackrock Victoria, (no date). 

3 ‘boob’,,in WordNet® 2.0, online ,, nd,, available at: 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=boob&x=17&y=15 (04 August 2006). 

4 ‘boob tube,’ in Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1).,nd, available at: 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=boob tube&x=0&y=0 (04 August 2006). 

5 ‘Saint Agatha,’ in Catholic Online, nd, available at: 

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=14 

(07 August 2006). 

6 “metaphors for human skin colour” in Wikipedia, nd ,available at: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_metaphors_for_race (29 July 2006). 

7 Nagel, J, ‘Ethnicity and Sexuality’, Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 1 (2000) p.107. 

8 ibid., p.110. 

9 ibid., p.113. 

10 Jones, A. ‘Postmodernism, Subjectivity, and Body Art: A Trajectory’ in Body art/performing the 

subject, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1998, p.26. 

11 Nagel, p.123. 

12 Foster, H, ‘“A Missing Part” in Prosthetic Gods’, An October Book, The MIT Press Cambridge, 

Massachsetts, London, England, 2004, p.308. 

13 Manchester, Colin, ‘Obscenity, Pornography & Art’, Media & Arts Law Review, 4, 2 (June, 1999) 

p.68. 

14 Rick Poynor, Designing Pornotopia, online, nd, available at: 

href=http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1 

790ed412182d798cb8135ac3e30e45a3a928a66dedcb410846bfbb1f1a685b1009ac&fmt=P (25 June 2006) 

15 Sex as a job and in pornography, instead of an expression of love or pleasure becomes problematic 

for some due to the cultural models, including the Church and the nuclear family that persist. Since 

Christianity, family structures and modest behavior are all values that are held to such a high standard 

in general, we tend to view the act of sex as equivalent to representatives of love, pleasure, and 


commitment. See Kelsey G., Deconstructing Sex Work In Order to Construct Feminism, online, nd, available 

at: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/courses/sexgender/f05/web4/kg.html (22 June 2006) 

16 Nagel, p.115. 

17 Carla Freccero, ‘Unruly Bodies: Popular Culture Challenges to the Regime of Body Backlash: Two 

Live Crew and Madonna’, Visual Anthropology Review, 9,1, (Spring 1993), p.74-81. 

18 Jones, A. ‘Body’ in Critical Terms for Art History, R.S. Nelson and R. Schiff, eds, University of 

Chicago Press, Chicago, 2003., p.256 

76 


Red Boob/Tan Boob, ‘Boob Series’, Megan Hansen- Knarhoi, 2006. 

© Megan HANSEN-KNARHOI 

Photograph: Stuart Page 


White Boob/Black Boob, ‘Boob Series’, Megan Hansen- Knarhoi, 2006. 



78 

www.artsauckland.ac.nz/gjaps

Yellow Boob/Brown Boob, ‘Boob Series’, Megan Hansen- Knarhoi, 2006. 




Topsy/Turvy, Megan Hansen- Knarhoi, 2004. 



80 

www.artsauckland.ac.nz/gjaps

Topsy/Turvy, Megan Hansen- Knarhoi, 2004.

Boob Series & Topsy/Turvy

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