Each dress represents one woman whose life was taken by intimate partner or family violence in Australia in 2024. Floating in space, translucent and untethered, the dresses evoke both presence and absence. They do not contain bodies, yet they speak profoundly of life, of joy, potential, and moments once lived. The transparent material allows light and shadow to move through, inviting viewers to walk among the panels and feel their quiet, collective weight.

This installation is a tactile memorial, a space where private loss becomes public reflection. It transforms sheer fabric, a material long associated with domesticity, femininity, and care, into a poetic document of rememberance. Drawing on traditions of feminist installation and memorial art, Feminine Fragility uses simplicity and repetition to honour each woman as an individual and to highlight the scale of this national crisis.

The installation does not seek to shock, but to hold space: for grief, for anger, and for connection. It asks the viewer not only to witness, but to remember, and to carry the stories forward.

For me the dress imprinted on the sheer fabric becomes the body. Suspended in motion, these garments represent lives that once danced, dreamed, and desired. Although no figure inhabits them, their form, movement, and transparency create an impression of presence, challenging the viewer to reflect on absence as something active, not passive. The panels confront the anonymity of statistics. Each of the 50 dresses symbolises a woman killed by an intimate partner or family member in 2024. Each had a personality, feelings, and the right to love and be loved. This installation is a stand against reducing women to numbers.