stitch / script

If choreography is designing ideas, emotions or narratives through movement, what of the objects created as a result of these movements? The installation Stairwell Suite (see previous post) at Siobhan Davies is made up of string held by dancers as they moved up and down the spiral staircase at the studios. The web like structure is the intermeshing of traces describing their movements. Can this be seen as a notation of the dance, or a physical translation of the ideas communicated through it? This is the question I’ve asked myself and invite the viewer to reflect upon when encountering the installation and accompanying film which features selected moments of the performance.

An insight to answer this question lies in the wall piece Stitching Score #1 (top 2 images) installed on the first floor. The piece consists of a 200+ meter long string of fabric, produced during Stitching Revolutions, an interactive project at Alexandra Palace, London, in 2010. This involved six people operating overlocking machines that cut and stitched the clothing together simultaneously. Arranged in a daisy chain formation, a silent conversation was had between the stitchers as fabric was fed from one machine to the next. The fabric, installed in horizontal lines, is shown as a record of the making activity and prompts the viewer to read these as a piece of notation, with its own unique grammar and symbols made up of stitch, thread and cloth. Not such a strange idea given the word ‘text’ comes from the latin textere, meaning ‘to weave’, and the word ‘line’ comes from linea, meaning a thread made from flax. Quoting Tim Ingold once again from Lines: A brief History - ‘if ‘line’ began as a thread rather than a trace, so did ‘text’ begin as a meshwork of interwoven threads rather than of inscribed traces’. This knowledge sheds a new understanding on both Stitching Score #1 and Stairwell Suite.

I periodically exhibit stitched, knotted and woven fabric pieces such as the Knitting Pieces or Garland series that result from similar communal making endeavours. With each install, the fabric is inevitably transformed and reveals new textures and surfaces as the weaving is further intermeshed or stretched out. The pieces have no fixed form or shape and chance determines to a large part their final appearance. Their narrative is thus constantly transformed, though ultimately these can only refer to the objects themselves, which the viewer interprets based on their own relationships to materials and processes. The work means nothing outside the perception of the object itself and, as with most text, meaning is often read between the lines.

On Friday 24th there will be a late night public stitching and weaving event at the exhibition. Click here for details. Lost property items left at the dance studios will be stitched on overlocking machines by members of the public, and weaving will take place in the stairwell, adding yet more content to the scripts and scores already displayed in the exhibition.

weave is a dance

Since starting with the interactive pieces I’ve mentioned in the previous post, 16 Knitting Pieces and 22 Garland installations have now been made in 9 different countries, across 3 different continents. Several thousand people have been involved in the creation of these works, exchanging tips, stories and experiences about making. All good! However, the odd thing is that I am not privy to any of these conversations, or very few of them at least. I facilitate them, but I am not a witness to them. I’ve never been particularly interested recording, filming or photographing the process as the installations are made. I do keep the fabric produced as a document and record of the activity and these are exhibited at a later stage, usually in the context of a new piece being created. This happened with my exhibition at the Centro Colombo Americano in Bogota in 2010, as well as nEUclear reactions at the CAB in Burgos in 2006, which then travelled to National Gallery in Prague for the Biennial in 2007. What has increasingly interested me with these works are the movements and gestures ‘performed’ by the stitchers as they go about their creative task. What I want to focus on is not just the object, nor the process, but the actions and movements required for the creation of the work.

An opportunity to investigate this presented itself when Helen Carnac asked me to contribute a piece for the touring exhibition Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution in 2009. I planned to start the making of Garland #21 included in the exhibition using a group of dancers as human bobbins. The dance stood as an invitation for visitors to add to the stitching over the course of the exhibition. Working with dancer/choreographer Cheryl McChesney Jones on this, we looked at stitching patterns and dance notation, and relied on the dancers for their input in creating the final choreographic sequences. This then led me a couple of years later to devise Stairwell Suite for my current exhibition Drawn to motion, woven in space, stitched over time at Siobhan Davies Studios in London. Stairwell Suite is an installation resulting from a performance by three dancers. I worked with Laura Glaser to develop the piece by using the stairwell at the studios and its distinctive vertical metal framework to weave on – see pictures above. This collaboration allowed me to interpret stitching patterns into a set of movements performed by the dancers to create a spiralling web-like structure while travelling up and down the staircase. Bobbin lace and finger crochet techniques were used to do this. The work was informed by Stairwell Weave-In at the Dovecot Studios, and Intelligent Trouble’s intervention at Kings College during the Festival of Materials and Making organised by the Institute of Making last October. The performance and resulting installation at Siobhan Davies Studios was an opportunity for me and the viewers to reflect on weaving and stitching processes, the relationship between object and action, and the silent negotiation between dancers, space and the materials, captured in dance.

The piece was performed at the studios this last Thursday January 12th, and will be again on February 17th, followed by a discussion between myself, Professor Patricia Lyons and dance artist Laura Glaser.

The images above illustrate Stairwell Weave-In at the Dovecot Studios, and Intelligent Trouble’s installation at Kings College. A film of the performance at Siobhan Davies will be uploaded on this blog shortly. For preview of exhibition click here.

cross it this way, and that way, and pass it on…

Anything can be made out of anything, and in a limitless number of ways. ‘Stuff’ is what draws a lot of people to art, and how it is all put together. To get them engaged with it, have them make something - making is inclusive, making is empowering.

A good number of projects of mine have relied on participation for this reason. I’ve created spaces where the public are invited to make collectively. My involvement with the knitting collective Cast Off, and the Craft Rocks event at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2003, led me to conceive the ongoing Knitting Pieces and Garlands series of works. Whether stitching a circle or weaving an installation, these activities prompt social interaction and communication through the doing – looking, thinking, making, exchanging. Ideas about craft and the social and cultural histories relating to it, as well as art in general, are passed around between participants. If art is about communication, let’s make!

As far as imparting knowledge about how to make things, the less said the better. Being told exactly how to handle tools and manipulate materials is a dangerous thing. I’m interested in the Knitting Pieces and Garland installations providing a space where participants can develop their own way of doing things and their relationship with materials and processes. Making is not simply about skill and technique, but about an approach and attitude in relation to these. With this freedom, each maker is more likely to develop his/her own individual way of making.

In the light of this it is odd I've been involved in working on a book such as Practical Basketry Techniques, where set procedures are demonstrated to achieve determine outcomes such as a platter, a multifunctional bowl and hat or a plant cloche. However, projects in the book are but an introduction to processes that aim to encourage readers to get inspired and develop creative ideas. I led a 3D weaving workshop with design students recently. I urged them to bring a range of materials, and following brief demonstrations, I got them to plait and so dome interlacing. Wonders were created in no time, and I like to think their outlook of weaving and how it relates to their practice has been changed forever. The best thing to do with your know how is to pass it on. You’ll be amazed what comes back your way. I myself got so much inspiration from the session. So here is some advise: cross it this way, and that way, and pass it on…