education
programme : AMBIGUOUS SPACES
Views of materials and materiality
Held at the University College for the Creative Arts at Farnham
on November 11th 2005
Reiko Sudo’s textiles are a conduit between artisan and
highly technological, industrial practice; in her approach, she
has placed her work in a deliberately ambiguous space, avoiding
the categorisation of her textiles even to the point of having
no designated front or back to her fabrics. Her textile titles
are indicators rather than descriptors; our relationship with her
textiles is dependent upon the position we choose to take up. She
invites us to use her textiles as the vehicle for movement between
a somatic and an imaginative response. She speaks of her textiles
as “not just a pleasure to look at, they
are a marvel to be experienced with all five senses: the feel of
textiles in
the
hand or on the body, the periodic rustling sounds, even the taste
on the lips.”
This sensory approach is the unspoken narrative of textiles, that
centrifugal shift from seeing to touching, which is wholly experiential.
It could be described as the space between material and materiality;
the space between the rigour of the making and the sublime outcome,
in which the artist as maker is guided by her or his intuitive
responses; the space between cloth and surface. It is the space
between delicious anticipation, as exemplified by the following
description of the textiles of Michiko Uehara: “The
silk yarn chosen by Michiko Uehara for her work is very thin…..probably
only spider’s web comes close to the fineness of this thread…..Not
perceived by touching, the pieces embody the thin delicacy and
existence of cloth only possibly glimpsed and experienced momentarily” 1,
and the sensual bodily experience as described by Reiko Sudo above.
This is a space that has no boundaries other than those we choose
to set. Speakers on the day will be drawn from different areas
of textile involvement, exploring ‘Ambiguous Spaces’ from
their particular perspective. These will include textiles at the
forefront of scientific, medical and engineering enquiry as discussed
by the keynote speaker Matilda McQuaid, curator of the recent ‘Extreme
Textiles’ at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York and co-curator
of the highly influential ‘Structure and Surface’ which
opened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1998. The author
Bradley Quinn will discuss the links between fashion and architecture,
curator and art historian Dr. Bojana Pejic will discuss the cathartic
power of textiles exemplified by the politically charged work of
Maja Bajevic. Practitioners Catherine Bertola, Philip Delamore,
Julia Griffiths-Jones and Sophie Roet will discuss the ambiguous
space that textile occupies within their own work. The day will
be chaired by Dr. Polly Binns, textile artist and Professor of
Visual Culture at Buckingham Chilterns University College
Delegates were invited to conduct their own exploration in
breakout groups, with their findings discussed in the final session
of the day.
1. Yoko Imai, in The Persistence of Craft. Transformation of
Textile Art: A Japanese Case Study. Ed Paul Greehalgh, 2002 A&C
Black pp 136-7
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Participants:
Please click on a speaker's name to view their abstract or
Paper
Keynote speaker
Matilda McQuaid Head of Textiles Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum,
New York, curator of ‘Extreme Textiles’ (Cooper-Hewitt)
and co-curator of ‘Structure and Surface’ (Museum of
Modern Art, New York)
Other Speakers
Bradley Quinn author ‘The Fashion of Architecture’, ‘Techno
Fashion’
Dr. Bojana Pejic, Curator
Catherine Bertola, Artist
Sophie Roet, Textile practitioner
Julia Griffiths Jones, Textile artist
Philip Delamore, Research Fellow, London College of Fashion
Chair
Dr. Polly Binns, Professor of Visual Culture at Buckingham Chilterns
University College
Breakout Groups report >>
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