Textile Society of America
Date of this Version
2006
Document Type
Article
Citation
Textile Narratives & Conversions: Proceedings of the 10th Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, October 11–14, Toronto, Ontario
Abstract
In this paper I will be discussing my use of material and process as conceptual elements for exploration in my practice, and the ways that narrative intersects with my work. I will be focusing on the first four works in ‘here’, my ongoing body of sculpture, installation and video works. These works examine human relationships with place through a lens of the contemporary and historical.
I am not exclusively a textile artist although I have used textiles periodically throughout my practice and extensively in the last several years. In my practice I draw on the social, personal and formal connotations of a wide range of materials and processes as integral conceptual components. Because of a heightened social relevance associated with the development of cultures in relation to both domestic and industrial territory, I have found textiles to be particularly suited to the embodiment of the issues I am currently exploring. Most, but not all, of the work I will present in this paper is situated within the realm of textile practice.
My work incorporates aspects of memory and history, cultural and personal iconography, and elements of the social and political to examine continua of human behavior. In connection to this path of inquiry in general, and in particular to my current explorations into issues relating to place and belonging, I am interested in the ways in which knowledge is indirectly communicated through generations, how experience and memory seep from one generation to the next to inform identity and agency. I see the familial narrative as a significant part of this intangible process - amalgams of subjective memory that act as conduits through which the lived experiences of our ancestors filter through time to inhabit our character.
Comments
Copyright 2006 by the author.