Untouchable, monumental and intimate: on feminized mysticism and occult weaving

Abstract

I work with weaving as an alchemical formula, a thought experiment and a ritual gesture. I am driven by a presence of great sensitivity and tactile sensibility. For me weaving is ambivalent, ambiguous, intense and serious. Through the process I use different voices, mime them, translate them and repeat. Every step of weaving and its preparations are repetitive. For me the repetition is ritual, a hymn said over and over, which eventually is expanding beyond the weave and me. This project revolves around the connection between weaving and spiritual séances, with starting-point in a study of four female mystics: Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Mechthild von Magdeburg and Hilma af Klint. With weaving as method, I want to put attention to affective, emotional and bodily forms of mysticism that through history has been associated with women. What can we learn from the mystics in questions about sensuality, embodiment, perception and knowledge? I want to manifest a feminist perspective on materiality and sensuality based on the methods of these mystics. How can I use weaving as a practice rather than a citation of mystics’ practices? The result consists of an installation of copper and silk weavings in a spiral construction, and this text material in which I aim to present a correlation of the different voices I want to activate through this project.