The name comes from a television documentary about Renaissance art that Peter and Anne happened to be watching one night. While explaining the provenance of a small modello of Michelangelo's David, the stuffy British narrator explained that the figure was singed in a fire at the Medici palace that was believed to have been started by a “careless servant woman.” The suppressed history of subjugation and subversion behind the narrator's aside pierced the discourse of privilege, power and art as commodity that the documentary helped reinforce, and the name stuck.
Forbidden, 2007
Returning to Karuna's infiltration of the ribbon cutting ceremony, as the assembled VIPs were leaving the podium, one of them strode assertively in Karuna’s direction. As the figure rapidly expanded to fill the tiny screen of Karuna's view finder, it became clear that if the man did not alter his course, he and Karuna were about to attempt to occupy the same space. Apparently taking Karuna for a member of the media, the VIP simply expected him to give way. But conditioned by a life spent actively capturing and questioning the moment rather than simply following prescribed scripts, Karuna held his ground and the man walked right into Karuna's camera, poking his eye on the microphone extending from it. Karuna interprets the incident as a sign of the blind arrogance of those in positions of power, and I imagine the ghost of the Italian servant woman hovering bemusedly over the scene.