Negotiation of Forces in Performative Weaving

Abstract

I am a textile artist that builds performative weaving constructions emphasizing the tensions in the reciprocal dialogue that occurs between body, tools and materials. This strategy has emerged from an intention to approach an embodied and immersive relationship with a weaving practice. How does a body adapt to a craft, and how does the craft change in response? All making, especially weaving, can be considered a modality of growth, and the body and any work produced in a craft relationship become a symbiotic, adaptive being. The textile is a life-sustaining extension and evolution of the human body. Our mutual dependence is the ground out of which I develop my projects. My research has settled into a generative weaving installation, designed to encourage the blurring of boundaries between body, loom and dyebath, fibers and pigments (the body becomes the tool, the material is the body, the material is the tool). The installation itself is woven as it is activated, made up of an unbroken silk band. The weaver is integrated through a modified backstrap loom, ancient technology that relies on muscular resistance for tension. To this end, the woven band loops around the waist, and around the weaving heddles, connecting the feet to them. The dyepot anchors the system to the room and to the body. If an element is out of balance, it will collapse. One can continually graft new threads onto this band, so in theory it could go on growing indefinitely. This ecosystem is perfectly calibrated to fit the weaver's body and circ­um­stance, an enhanced, collaborative being, like a stone-age cyborg.