“Screens” - exhibition
“Middle Aged Man” (series of five tapestries, 2019) “Attention Economy 1” (2019) “Attention Economy 2” (2019) “Child Picking Cotton in Uzbekistan” (2017) “A Man” (2019)
Sammanfattning
New woven works for exhibition, exploring a different type of image than I usually do in my rya tapestries - which either comes with a personal story or are larger in scale depicting images from the global textile industry – here I made i.e. a repetition of works (5) of a unpersonal and rather shallow image of a generic man.
Exhibited at Galleri Konstepidemin during the Gothenburg Biennial as part of GIBCA Extended 2019
Med stöd av
Galleri Konstepidemin
Beskrivning av projektet
During Gibca's (2019) first period at the Galleri Konstepidemin, the Gallery's first two exhibition invitations were intertwined in one gallery space, presenting my ”Screens” exhibition of 9 rya tapestries with Stina Östbergs exhibition ”Lovers”.
With Google as the starting point and sketch method, I am attracted by quick decisions where I myself do not have complete decision-making rights. I share a world of images with everyone who has access to the internet. But whose pictures am I reproducing? I hand weave rya rugs. It takes time, and requires attention. Two threads are attached as a knot around two warp threads on a long row from one edge to the other. Then the knots are locked with two, three rows of cloth, the simplest weave. The pixels in the printed image downloaded from the Internet are attached with needles under the warp guide the choice of colours in the yarn I tie. As a weaving artist, I want to give a picture of how time and attention are directed towards different concepts and conditions in the making of my works which can be different if I have a personal attachment to the image or not. Engaging with the image in the making process is different if the image itself has a deeper story in itself than the generic, the exploration on a woven-pixel level turned out to be more rewarding for me as a maker when I "cared for" the image (which I did not with the generic man).
In my search, I found ”stock photos” on the Internet, images that with their common visual tropes, regardless of visual content, give them their flat, silly and posing expression. Even though they may have very little in common visually, they are always recognized in their own stock photo-like way, whether it is a "generic middle-aged man" or a keyword like "success" or "sunset". The multiple image represents the man as the Western world describes him.
These new tapestries were made as part of an ongoing investigation of notions of time in handmade practices.
They are different in style from my usual works – which either comes with a personal story or are larger in scale depicting images from the global textile industry – here I made a repetition of works (5) of a unpersonal and rather shallow image of a generic man. I wanted to investigate if the image itself had an impact on my own experience in weaving it. I argue that the time I spend with images during the weaving process influence the strength of the final tapestry – in the meaning that images with stronger messages (i.e. political) makes more sense for me to make than just “any image”. I find it more useful to spend time working with images that feel important to me, in other words: I do not enjoy weaving for the sake of weaving. My aim was to communicate that the common idea often expressed – that time consuming crafts like weaving have a value just because of its time-consuming nature – is more complex. The tapestries I made here are in the same quality of others I have made previously but are less interesting from a making-point-of-view.
Typ av arbete
Curated exhibition
Offentliggjord i
Galleri Konstepidemin, Gothenburg 5 - 29 September during the biennial GIBCA as part of GIBCA Extended 2019 Public talk 29 September at Galleri Konstepidemin together with Ulla Moberg (Galleri Konstepidemin) and Stina Östberg (artist)
Länk till verkets webbplats
https://konstepidemin.se/
www.gibca.se
www.emelierondahl.se
Datum
2019-09Upphovsman
Röndahl, Emelie
Nyckelord
rya
weaving
tapestry
crafts
textile
exhibition
biennial
Publikationstyp
artistic work
Språk
eng