presentation to year 2 BA Textiles to support writing about your practice - starting points include the consideration of context

1. so consider what we talked about last time we met and the task that you agreed to undertake in relation to professional practice.

2. statements

3. Yuko Takada

6. For me tracing paper represents the fine line between dream and reality

7. Chiyoko Tanaka

9. Many of my pieces, once woven by hand, are laid down outdoors on the ground, or on a rock. I then rub them over and over again, carefully, with a selected stone or a brick. I just want to touch the earth through this process, and to trace the texture of the ground. For these works I have coined the phrase Grinded Fabric.

10. Masaklazu Kabayashi

12. When I held a single thread loosely between my hands, I noticed that it formed a beautiful, natural line. For the next ten years I explored this idea.

14. This work was created to highlight a single strand of thread. A bamboo-leaf boat floats down a river on a jet-black night. A glance reveals a crescent moon peeping out from behind the clouds

15. Naomi Kobayashi

17. I am intimately aware of the rhythms and cycles of nature, sometimes powerful, at other times delicate. The circles I have been presenting for several years symbolise the cosmos

18. Machiko Agano

20. I am attracted by the mysterious shapes of nature: patters made by the wind on desert sands; shapes on eroded rocks on coastal shores; clouds driven across the autumn sky. While these natural patterns serve perhaps no purpose, nevertheless I feel drawn to the power of an invisible and all-encompassing force of which I am part.

21. Machiko Agano

23. The limestone cave, and unconscious memories of the womb…Once you retrace both their histories, you are guided back to a primordial age that you once knew intimately.

24. Mitsuo Toyazaki

26. I am interested in our everyday, ordinary senses. Of particular interest are people’s thoughts in regard to clothing. What is it about clothing that creates anxiety? The question is linked to the objectives behind my work, and in particular to the consideration of two motifs: decoration and symbols.

27. Chiyu Uemae

30. What is so special about art created through stitching is that the thread itself posses both light and darkness, and the dark background cloth is visible even in the densely stitched areas, so the surface of the work is very subtle in terms of colour.

31. Ann Hamilton

34. My first hand is a sewing hand Like human skin (cloth) is a membrane that divides an exterior from an exterior. It both reveals and conceals. Interiors are also exteriors

35. Caroline Broadhead

37. I am interested in the idea of a negative double of the body, the insubstantial mirror image, the inescapable other….. I wanted to use the shadow as an illuminating element, with a reflective fabric cut to the cast shadow, and here revealing the lining, the inside of a dress. The small scale of these pieces gave them a simultaneously sweet and sinister feel, reflecting the various meanings of shadows.

38. Anne Wilson

40. My objects and installations explore the themes of time, loss, private and social rituals. The work draws upon culturally constructed meanings (coded women’s work, art historical conventions), conceptual processes and perception. I use predominantly the materials of hair and cloth and labour (hand stitching) associated with the domestic work place……. The visceral nature of human hair is in contrast to the formality of white linen and sets up an aesthetic oppositional tendencies

41. Michael Brennan-Wood

42. I’ve been interested in microphotography since I was a student…it’s almost an inner landscape, or cellular landscape. I looked at one of the lace designs closely and it reminded me of skin.

44. Towards the end of the 80’s I was beginning to get very interested in textile history and to question the derisory way in which decoration and pattern were written and talked about.

45. I like the idea of a genealogy, of being part of the history of textiles. It makes me feel rooted in a tradition

46. Yinka Shonibare

47. I am actually producing something perceived as ethnic in inverted commas, but at the same time the African Fabric used in my work is something industrially produced and given its cultural origins, my own authenticity is questioned.

49. Eva Hesse

52. It is the most ridiculous structure that I have ever made and that is why it is really good. It has the kind of depth I don’t always achieve and that is the kind of depth or soul or absurdity or life or meaning or feeling or intellect that I want to get.

53. Christian Boltanski

55. Second-hand clothes speak of someone who was here but is no longer here. The smell and the creases have remained, but not the person. Pieces with clothes are more difficult…one thinks of the Holocaust. I always try to use modern clothes so that they can be recognised as things of today.

56. thinking about starting points for writing

57. TO ROLL TO CREASE TO FOLD TO STORE TO BEND TO SHORTEN TO TWIST TO TWINE TO DAPPLE TO CRUMPLE TO SHAVE TO TEAR TO CHIP TO SPLIT TO CUT TO SEVER TO DROP TO REMOVE TO SIMPLIFY TO DIFFER TO DISARRANGE TO SHAVE TO OPEN TO MIX TO SPLASH TO KNOT TO SPILL TO DROOP TO FLOW TO SWIRL TO ROTATE TO SMEAR TO FLOOD TO FIRE TO IMPRESS TO INLAY TO LIFT TO CURVE TO SUPPORT TO HOOK TO SUSPEND TO SPREAD TO HANG OF TENSION OF GRAVITY OF ENTROPY OF NATURE OF GROUPING OF LAYERING OF FELTING TO COLLECT TO GRASP TO TIGHTEN TO BUNDLE TO HEAP TO GATHER TO ARRANGE TO REPAIR TO DISCARD TO PAIR TO DISTRIBUTE TO SURFEIT TO SCATTER TO COMPLEMENT TO ENCLOSE TO SURROUND TO ENCIRCLE TO HIDE TO COVER TO WRAP TO DIG TO TIE TO BIND TO WEAVE TO JOIN TO MATCH TO LAMINATE TO BOND TO HINGE TO MARK TO EXPAND TO DILUTE TO LIGHT TO REVISE TO MODULATE TO DISTRILL OF WAVES OF ELECTROMAGNETIC OF INERTIA OF IONIZATION OF POLARIZATION OF REFRACTION OF SIMULTANEITY OF TIDES OF REFLECTION OF EQUILIBRIUM OF SYMMETRY OF FRICTION TO STRETCH TO BOUNCE TO ERASE TO SPRAY TO SYSTEMATIZE TO REFER TO FORCE OF MAPPING OF LOCATION OF CONTEXT OF TIME TO TALK OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS OF CARBONIZATION 67-68 TO CONTINUE

58. your making - contextual framework

59. social context Making and seeing an image always takes place in a social context. The way it is seen and how it is seen are culturally constructed. Audience for work - who is included/excluded/implicated on the ways an image is produced, circulated and consumed

60. political context specific political issue broad political issue gender - race - ethnicity - sexual orientation - class - disability - religion

61. personal context Biography - narrative of the self particular issues - memories What motivates/ drives you? Your particular skills as an artist/ designer/writer/photographer What strategies do you use when the work is not going well? How do you relate to the forces that in part condition what you know and in which you make things?

62. critical/theoretical context Does your work relate to particular critical debates about contemporary art and design practices? Is your work informed by/engaging with/contesting particular theoretical frameworks/issues?

63. historical context Understand how/whether your practice relates to a tradition, with a history How knowledge relates to periods in time.

64. geographical context Local, regional, national, international, global. Where do you make your work? Do you make your work in relation to a particular place? studio home church city rural cyberspace

65. institutional context BA Course - school of design - NUCA Your educational background/experience Your professional background/experience Your family background/experience

66. cultural context In it’s broadest sense - ‘a whole way of life’ - this relates to all the other categories. More specifically, what works of artists, designers, writers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians are important to you and your work - why?

67. mapping your practice Any other contexts worth considering? Importance Overlapping change - evolution of practice