Textiled Becomings: Making from Scratch

Hagit Haya Cohen, University, My, Jondi Keane, Paul Tacon
2018
Textiled Becomings is a creative work with an accompanying exegesis. This project explores the ways in which cultural, social and environmental forces are intertwined in the creative process, and examines how the final products reflect specific material processes and embodied performative activities. My creative work entails the production of living textiles 'from scratch': growing cotton from seeds to make yarn, implanting the hand-spun yarn with barley seeds and weaving the seeded yarns
more » ... er using my body as a loom. No tools are involved in this process. Some of the woven pieces take the shape of the space between the limbs of my body, while others take the shape of the space between my limbs and those of another person, which together form the loom. A selection of woven pieces will be hung in the gallery and irrigated to begin growing and perform their life cycle in the final exhibition. This accompanying exegesis contextualises the project and discusses particular issues pertaining to its development. The exegesis begins by discussing a range of theoretical frameworks and their contribution to the methodology that developed before examining my ability to correlate the material processes, then looking at the embodied experience of making the work, which culminates in the decision-making process involved in presenting the final exhibition. Throughout the exegesis, I argue for the interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary nature of practiceled research and creative practice. The Introduction establishes the context and importance of weaving and textile work. I outline the way in which the exegesis should be considered in relation to the creative work, emphasising that the two work together in tandem, and are much greater and more far-reaching than the sum of their parts.
doi:10.25904/1912/2117 fatcat:jzraw3o36vastkttydmdf5fuli