Summary: June Hill
Chair: Lesley Millar, Professor of Textile Culture
Presentees: Lise Bjørne Linnert; Lutz Becker; Jane Wildgoose
We have only given the names of the organizers and invited presenters,
as this is not a verbatim transcription but a summary. Bullet points
indicate new speaker.
Professor Lesley Millar
introduced the seminar by welcoming all present, explaining the
structure of the session and encouraging each person to participate
in the debate.
Three short presentations then followed, each given by an invited
participant whose work had particular relevance to the seminar
and its theme of the communication of difficult issues.
Lise Bjørne Linnert
spoke briefly about Desconocida: Unknown– outlining the situation
in Ciudad Juarez, and her involvement through the development of
the project. There is no official list of the hundreds of women
who have been murdered in the area. Of the 89 who were murdered
last year, only the names of c20 are known. Lise has obtained names
of over 200 women from grassroots activists. She was concerned
to not present the women as victims and to create a response that
was female and not brutal: something about the lives of these women,
not their deaths. She also wanted to draw on the universal issues
of abuse of women all over the world. It was ‘not just about them but
about us.’
Lise remembered her grandmother embroidering
name labels in her clothes. She used this idea as the basis for
her project –embroidering
the names of the murdered women on individual labels. These labels
have been stitched in workshops that have taken place in 22 countries
around the world. Along with the name labels, each person
also stitches another label with the word ‘unknown’ – worked
in the language and script of their own country. This draws out
the universal and local relevance of the issues – documenting
all of the unknown deaths that take place in each community.
Engagement was important. The stitching
involved people with other people’s lives and formed a
relationship.
Lutz Becker
is a freelance documentary film maker. He talked of a recent project
that explored the building, and breaking down, of walls. Walls
separate people and are both a symbol and cause of conflict.
Where there is conflict there is violence and murder. Talking
about the fall of the Berlin wall, he remarked of the time when ‘ it
was falling in our own minds’– a moment of change
prior to its physical destruction, when shifts in perception,
understanding and behaviour made the physical change possible.
A time when it changed ‘from a physical edifice to a trivial
entity.’
He had created a sound sculpture
recording the sounds of the Berlin Wall, which had been played
as people arrived at the Seminar and he spoke of the context
in which this work had been produced . How can a wall make sounds?
He recorded the noises of people eroding the edifice with hand
chisels, urgently. The Berlin Wall had been made of dense concrete,
that had been layered on top with another element that included
sensors and wires. The intensity of the destructive activity
was carried along the wall as a percussive sound.
He recorded the sounds and then played them at the point at which
they were recorded.
Of the wall destruction, he observed,
the people’s wish
for the wall to disappear and their laying hand on it was a moment
of hope – a hope that people would use the occasion to learn
from history. But subsequently walls were built elsewhere. Of the
wall in Gaza, he observed people had responded by producing films
and music but no visual art other than graffiti. Maybe it is too
early. He spoke also of the landscape beyond the wall. He concluded
by talking about the Clinton Wall built between Mexico and the
USA in 1994 which has resulted in 4,000 deaths. ‘It is important
to follow the steps of the people who have been murdered. The fact
that people embroider is an act of imitation; of the life of the
person who has been murdered. It is a label of mourning.’
Jane Wildgoose
is an artist and writer. Her presentation focused on ‘how
we as artists communicate difficult things’ and posed the
question ‘what is it in my work as an artist that makes me
a different communicator from a reporter?’
She spoke of the Indelible exhibition at Fabrica which
had examined:
- How the worst things are communicated (in the
media)
- How
does that affect us – the
passive, mute response
- How can we as artists
work in a way that draws a response
She spoke of Lockhart’s Principle – the founding father
of forensic science- and of his objective, factual and unemotional
analysis of the microscopic debris - the stains and traces – that
were found at crime scenes and which informed the reports he presented
to courts. She compared that with the work of artist Shelly Goldsmith
and her concerns to explore female fragility in and through her
work. For the Indelible exhibition, Shelly had been paired
in the project with forensic scientist Alison Fendly who has worked
on a several serious sexual assault cases. Both spoke of the beauty
of visual evidence – Fendly deliberately unemotionally; Goldsmith
with evocative references of stained garments; working on the senses;
using her imagination. Shelly’s work in the exhibition were
printed with the emotional stories she wanted to tell – rage,
lust, anger – through staining, seeping, laser cutting, ink
blots. The work consisted of garments embedded with emotional
stories which was presented in a sterile ‘forensic’ environment.
Another Indelible artist,
Carol Hayman, produced a video installation that featured interviews
with victims of crimes: played simultaneously – visitors had to get close to each screen
to hear the stories and move around the room to follow the stories
as they were played across different video players. It was like ‘ a
cloud of terrible stories’ that you had to listen to intently
to get the whole story.
‘It made me think:
- how do we communicate the most terrible stories
- how do we deal with memory (Proust wrote obsessively about
his past. Through his senses he is overwhelmed with memory
- how to we receive the evidence
- who are the people in control of giving us that evidence
- what is the role of the artist
within that – how
do we balance the forensic and the sense
‘We engage our bodies, our
whole senses with stories.’
June Hill
I had learned from working on
the Rozanne Hawksley exhibition: that her work is challenging as
it deals with the most visceral
aspects of life. It expresses her ability to look unflinchingly
at the difficult aspects of life - drawing from her personal experience
and a deep empathy with other people. I have realised in working
on the exhibition, that through her work, she challenges us to
look with that same unflinching eye. Not everyone is able to do
this (reflected in the response to her work). Yet the response
is strongest and most direct from those who have known the experiences
her work explores. There is nothing gratuitous in the work.
People respond to the honesty and integrity and depth of feeling
within the works. (Relates to Jane's point further on).
At the start I also said that as a curator, I was interested in
material culture and the power of objects to convey, express and
record events, emotions and ideas. Those where there is a form
of recognisable iconography and also those where there is none
yet the object draws a profound response which (often unknown)
is in step with that which is appropriate to the context of the
object/artwork.
Comments in the Open Debate:
- Embroidery is about rebuilding. It is about
documenting, recording, reconstructing. Stitch to reconstruct
something of the psyche. About uniting the world community and
bringing some element of truth.
- I work
with a reductive vocabulary. Textiles as silent witnesses.
Powerful resonances with minimal means. Ambiguity that gives
space for the imagination. ‘Its what you don’t know
about them that’s powerful.’
- How things communicate symbolically with intrinsic
language; pare down to pure materiality.
- The narrative is within myself, but I choose
not to express that outside. Want to leave it to the imagination.
- How can one, not in an arbitrary way, place
an emotionally or politically charged exhibition within spaces
that might not come with that. Need for a strategic framework.
June Hill/Jane Wildgoose:
The need for curatorial integrity in the exhibition of work.
Do you ask ‘ who am I to tell
that story?’
Lise Bjørne Linnert:
My initial response is ‘what can I do?’
It is about personal engagement and universality. ‘I cannot
control – they are telling their own stories.’
- Interested in
narrative worldwide and the ability of textiles to work around
the element of censorship. Its wrong to take the intimate and
make national statements but textiles have an amazing capacity
to take the intimate and make it specific. Respected if not
known. Locating it very specific – trace
of maker and narrative being told.
- Several comments:
Cultural memory – ‘where
history and subjectivity meet’
Theo Moorman – thinking whilst working (value of process
of making)
Relationship of self and other – not easy balance to make.
Textile ability to do so because so many people can and do engage
with it – video of people sewing – monument of people
sewing.
- Practicality of embroidery. Still
have embroidery done with mother and kept what we brought
back from India. I remember the reason why I am doing embroidery – ‘always a reason.’ Remember
being sent home from school without name label in school uniform.
The poignancy of someone else’s remembrance of a person.
The marking of linen with red initials – value the cloth
for the memory of the people (unknown). Collect from jumble sales – no
idea of person but seems respectful to buy that piece.
- Recollections of the power of
the recitation of names after 9/11and Christian Boltanski’s
photographs of unknown people.
- Placing of people – accumulation;
time; duration of project; how built up over time; imbued
with our own DNA over that process of time.
Lutz Becker:
Time – when we can confront and come to terms with something
Art and power – narrative and ritual close together. Why
we tell each other events; impelled to tell story again and again – repetition – develop
into ritual. German equivalents of Victorians met once a week to
sin wool and sing songs to each other and produce yarn that they
would weave into their bed linen to use throughout their lives.
Texture of life and product; warp and weft of events give them
meaning. In making of things – also search for meaning and
better understanding.
- As a graphic designer - reproduces
evidence of other people’s
work. Involved in graphics for Desconocida:Unknown – awareness
of what’s going on not in my world at all. Found it frankly
shocking. When we met to discuss the book, Lise talked in an
objective almost dispassionate way. It informed my approach.
I tried to be dispassionate in m design. People need to do something
in response to something (run for charity etc) . We need to leave
evidence which will always be remembered; that’s why this
project is so strong. I designed something that was muted, not
overdramatic – let it speak for itself.
- My concern as a photographer
is about engaging. Embroidering a name whilst reading about
what happened to the people brings a connection with other
people through the workshops. That what I try to communicate
through my photographs. What ismy place in telling other
people’s stories? I work on an
ethic of responsibility. How do you get past compassion fatigue?
How do you reach other people?
Jane Wildgoose:
Problem is not in asking the question but when you stop asking
yourself that question. What uestions are we asking ourselves?
What is the appropriate response as a human being? The ethical
response? Feel passionately but question deeply. Where are the
boundaries?
Lise Bjørne Linnert:
Desconocida:Unknown – marking the dead, cataloguing
them. Nothing about being victims – if things are hopeless – you
can do something.
The women don’t need others to speak for them.
Be aware and spread awareness – relevance for self and own
community
Gives us an opportunity to express our horror
Gives us a voice when we might be mute – implications for
Gaza. Ability of art to transcend political issues and voyeurism.
- Textiles to remember and also part of the healing process.
- When first stitching – start
telling stories which incorporate those women as living entities.
Building relationships with name in stitching it.
- Do we focus on the snapshot (of a
tragedy) or what comes after? Events need to be lived out
by the next generation, To what degree does art convey that?
Lise Bjørne Linnert:
Important to engage the young. I feel a huge responsibility for
the whole project and want to feed it back into the community.
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