Walking With Keys

Walking With Keys is an ongoing project that examines everyday safety rituals, with particular attention to habits so ingrained they are nearly imperceptible.
The image of an individual moving through a parking lot at night, keys threaded between their fingers, is familiar to many, particularly women. This gesture exists at the intersection of instinct and routine.

In Walking With Keys, I have created large, soft sculptures of keys, thereby inverting their conventional function. Keys are typically objects designed to grant access, serving as literal tools that unlock doors, spaces, and opportunities. However, in moments of vulnerability, they are repurposed as makeshift weapons, shifting their function from permission to protection. Through artistic creation, I further transform this dynamic: keys become soft, oversized, and comforting, stripped of their original utility and aggression. By converting these small, often overlooked items into substantial, tactile forms, the project highlights how meaning and agency are transferred and reshaped through creative intervention. This work underscores both the normalization and the inherent absurdity of this widely accepted act of self-protection.

The phallic symbolism of keys introduces an additional layer of tension. Objects originally intended for access and control become improvised tools of safety against threats they also symbolically represent. Enlarging these forms accentuates this duality, making visible the complex interplay among vulnerability, power, and the objects individuals are conditioned to trust.

Carrying these soft-key sculptures through public spaces further emphasizes this reality. What is typically concealed in a fist becomes an unmistakable, visible symbol of the vigilance that many individuals quietly maintain each day.