Soft Pictures - Re-making the Hattersley
“Soft Pictures" (brightly coloured and embroidered textiles), are the antithesis of their subject matter, the derelict industrial space, and yet they both inform the product of my practice.
Whilst the ruin has an historical discourse of its own, as does the derelict building of the 21st century, my enquiry is into the specific time zone of the transitional space and the contemplation of the process of entropic transformation, as an enquiry into the making, unmaking and re-making of the fabric of our lives. Documenting through photography can record the atmosphere of this transitional state but it can’t capture the process of change. To extend the process of documentation into a textile medium, entails a process of making, which mirrors the unmaking state of the site explored. In some sense I am trying to re-make the space, through the textile. Glen Adamson (in Thinking Through Craft) comments that “craft only exists in motion” and through my exploration of these spaces I attempt to explore the “craft” of decay and the process of change.
The subject of my exhibited work addresses the dichotomy between the two processes of the “craft” of decay or change, and the re-crafting of its observation through “soft pictures”. It has a specific focus on two derelict Hattersley Looms. Over the last three years I have been based at an old textile mill near Leeds which is undergoing transitional development. My explorations of this site over the last three years, has developed from documenting, to a more involved interaction with the space.
The pieces exhibited included an embroidered textile response alongside photographs of site interactions.
Futurescan 4: Valuing Practice
University of Bolton
23-24 January 2019
Photographs by Tony Radcliffe and Di Downs.