To weave is to make a complex pattern of stories out of interconnected strands.
Weaving by Ting Waterhouse.
A piece of fabric is woven, under and over, under and over, countless times. It is absorbed. It becomes tangled and held tight, together by a thread. Some of it shows in some places, in others it hides. It no longer becomes an individual piece of fabric, it becomes part of something bigger.
We share stories with one another all the time; we tell little anecdotes and speak of big experiences. We swap and share the moments that make up our lives. In doing so we make connections, threads of ourselves span from one to an other and we become entwined. Stories, without being advice or direct answers, can help us think about how we live.
For the past two years the Patchwork Stories installation invited members of the public to sew sections of fabrics together whilst reflecting on the audio stories they had heard. However, 2016’s Patchwork Stories used weaving as the choice for collective making. At the installation, visitors were handed a strip of plain white fabric and invited to sit down with other visitors and Story Travellers to reflect on the audio stories and illustrate some of these thoughts onto their strip of fabric. The opportunity for people to make marks themselves felt like an important part of the process, and acted as a platform for social interactions and expression. Visitors were then asked to deposit their illustrated strip into a basket, pick up someone else’s strip and weave it into the tapestry, continuing to weave connections between stories and people.
The shift from sewing to weaving was born out of the desire to deepen the meaning of the physical act of making that takes place within the project. The core team wanted the physical making element of the project to mirror the storytelling and act as a physical counterpart to the verbal stories, which weaving felt to do more so than sewing, as well as being a more symbolic and meaningful act. As well as this, weaving is more accessible for a lot of people, with some people finding sewing to be quite intimidating as its slightly more skill based and time consuming whereas weaving is more immediate and a more openly collaborative act.
The Patchwork Stories project and installation this year wove together a community of stories, and the finished weavings, we think, are a beautiful reflection of the connections made and the stories shared.
Weaving by Ting Waterhouse.
A piece of fabric is woven, under and over, under and over, countless times. It is absorbed. It becomes tangled and held tight, together by a thread. Some of it shows in some places, in others it hides. It no longer becomes an individual piece of fabric, it becomes part of something bigger.
We share stories with one another all the time; we tell little anecdotes and speak of big experiences. We swap and share the moments that make up our lives. In doing so we make connections, threads of ourselves span from one to an other and we become entwined. Stories, without being advice or direct answers, can help us think about how we live.
For the past two years the Patchwork Stories installation invited members of the public to sew sections of fabrics together whilst reflecting on the audio stories they had heard. However, 2016’s Patchwork Stories used weaving as the choice for collective making. At the installation, visitors were handed a strip of plain white fabric and invited to sit down with other visitors and Story Travellers to reflect on the audio stories and illustrate some of these thoughts onto their strip of fabric. The opportunity for people to make marks themselves felt like an important part of the process, and acted as a platform for social interactions and expression. Visitors were then asked to deposit their illustrated strip into a basket, pick up someone else’s strip and weave it into the tapestry, continuing to weave connections between stories and people.
The shift from sewing to weaving was born out of the desire to deepen the meaning of the physical act of making that takes place within the project. The core team wanted the physical making element of the project to mirror the storytelling and act as a physical counterpart to the verbal stories, which weaving felt to do more so than sewing, as well as being a more symbolic and meaningful act. As well as this, weaving is more accessible for a lot of people, with some people finding sewing to be quite intimidating as its slightly more skill based and time consuming whereas weaving is more immediate and a more openly collaborative act.
The Patchwork Stories project and installation this year wove together a community of stories, and the finished weavings, we think, are a beautiful reflection of the connections made and the stories shared.
