CRIP TIME WATCH. 2025

Crip Time Watch is a wearable sculpture that reimagines a smartwatch as a vessel for chronic illness, labour, and endurance. The device nestles inside a hand-moulded clay shell — the body of the hour. Two entangled figures embrace the screen. Part exoskeleton, part companion, the form holds the intimacy, mutual support, and weight of time lived through invisible illness.

On its screen plays a 12-hour video of a woman working remotely from home. Her job? To move time forward — physically — by pushing weighted clock hands across a vast floor. The hands are sandbags: soft, but heavy. Around her lie objects of care and work: a hot water bottle, ice pack, yoga mat, pills, foam roller, laptop, and bed.

From 7am to 7pm, she pushes and pushes. Her movement follows the arc of the day: starting slowly, pacing herself, anticipating pain, multitasking, pushing through frantically — until her body gives out. At times, she collapses into a resting space — the Crip Time Pocket — and the clock stops. There is no illusion of balance. Time doesn’t flow in a neat circle here. It sags, skips, drags, and breaks.

The performance draws on real strategies shared by chronically ill women who work remotely — pacing, anticipating, pushing through — gathered in interviews by human geographer Dr. Elisabetta Crovara. Its 12-hour structure was inspired by one participant who adopted longer, non-consecutive workdays to allow space for rest and medical care. I wrote the script by weaving these testimonies with my own experience of chronic illness. I am the woman in the video. Every push, pause, and collapse is mine.

The sculpture “needs” daily recharging via USB. Even its maintenance becomes a quiet ritual of care. Housed in a smartwatch — a device built to optimise the body — Crip Time Watch offers an intimate counterpoint. The small screen becomes a portal into a private world, where each gesture is deliberate, each hour earned. The watch rests on the body of a new wearer, while inside it, another body is seen working, struggling, pausing. This proximity creates an intimate relationship between the observer and the performer — a quiet witnessing of the often-hidden negotiations behind productivity. Rooted in a feminist perspective, Crip Time Watch reflects the daily tensions between health and labour, and invites more inclusive ways of thinking about time, endurance, and care.

Acknowledgments:

Collaboration Dr. Elisabetta Crovara & Jonathon Griggs

 

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MATERIALS Android smartwatch, custom video app, air-dry clay with

archival polymer varnish , timber armature, USB charging cable

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DIMENSIONS Height - 240mm ; Width - 240mm ; Depth - 140 mm


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