1/02/2018 - FIGURED FABRIC SHOWCASE

Whilst I had been printing, the Figured Fabric showcase setup was busily underway. After I finished  the pieces, I went along to have a look.
The pieces had been arranged differently to how the brief had suggested. Instead of being sewn together into larger works, they were instead all hung induvidually on washing line like structures that spanned the room. Although I really liked the way this idea traversed the entire space, and actually involved some of the height of the room which I think is often overlooked in the project spaces, it did mean that my concept was less effective. As all of the squares were for the most part seperate and not hemmed together at the edges, the creeping, invasive element of my design was somewhat lessened.

As well as this, I was somewhat disappointed to see that my pieces had both been hung upside down, despite having words on them as requested; a feature which gave the works a very obvious correct way up. I had specifically sculpted the leaves to work with gravity in certain ways to make them hang naturally and give them additional depth, and this also was ineffective when turned upside down, as gravity then acted upon the works in exactly the opposite way to that which I intended.

It was unfortunate that this happened, as obviously like the rest, my work had an obvious correct way up, however it appeared as in this case a choice had been made to turn my works around, perhaps due to the weight of the work hanging insecurely on the pegs in this way. There is also a chance of course, that due to the dark nature of the background and the subtle nature of the text, that they did not notice the work even had a correct way up.

Some of the other pieces were then pinned off the bottom of another fabric square, allowing areas to drape and hang a little further, which sort of alluded to the original intent of joining the works together, but only partially, and in a somewhat uncertain manner with two or three raw pins joining the fabrics together. There was something a lot more inherently propagandistic to the works when displayed in this way, hung up like an amalgamation of hanging flags, laundry and photographic prints. This coupled with the sewing machine gave the room the sense of being a very functional space, like a studio in itself, and then the many fabrics like independent thoughts and ideas spreading out away from the central work stations.

I asked the curators setting up about this, and they filled me in that they wanted to be able to easily return everyone's pieces, undamaged, and thought they couldn't really guarantee this by stitching them together. I feel like there are ways this could have been achieved, but it would have been very labour intensive, and involved a lot of hand stitching which could have then been unpicked with greater ease and minimal damage. However I think this arrangement has a great deal of power; it is impossible to say in comparison of course, as I never saw it realised in it's intended configuration, but it could definitely be speculated that this arrangement was infact more powerful. It was just not the configuration I had specifically designed my piece to incorporate. However as an overall exhibition I thought it was very impressive and certainly got everyone producing unique pieces of art, and perhaps thinking differently about their working processes.