Exhibited: Alice Springs - March 13 - March 28, 2024.
Don’t be fooled, these are not “just” baskets - delia, 2024
The five baskets and wall hangings reweave stories that are difficult to carry. These baskets make visible the textures and forms created through past-present-future materials, words, relationships, and practices to let you know that we are still here. We have not and can not disappear. The basket materials and contents reweave and respond to practices that bring us into contact with difference, which invite opportunities to co-create through a ‘connected rhizomatic we’.
Look closely - nothing is as it seems - chicken wire holds the mechanism to reweave words and materials. The handles hold childhood memories, twisted thesis words, lemongrass, she-oak spindles, bamboo and leather offcuts.
The looms that we carry reweave, repattern encounters with Arrernte Country and the country of our birthplaces - Ireland, Western Victoria and a church lawn.
The italicised re is a generative prefix, as in, rethinking, rewalking, reweaving, returning. In this way, nothing is lost, nor is any story fixed once and for all. What humans know or classify as “basket” or “chicken wire” have storied lives that resist a fixed or given determination.
These two bags (Coffee bag weaving 1 & 3, Wendy Taleo) use weaving techniques to disrupt the story of the purpose of the coffee bag. Upsetting the pattern of text printed on two bags, it’s a letter puzzle that needs a good dose of caffeine to fathom. In undone theory it is the absence of thread that allows us to read the words and see through the jute fabric to what lies beneath. The overall shape is like a bookmark, a place we pause to think. ‘Entanglement’ is a theory word that comes from many disciplines. In this instance, (Coffee bag weaving 2, Wendy Cowan) I am thinking of the entangled inseparability of working as a teacher, weaver and writer. For example, when I walk into a classroom, I'm entangled (woven into) the lives of the students, colleagues, curriculum, and the place where teaching and learning is situated. . Separateness is an illusion. I am committed to paying attention to these entanglements. What patterns are being made? What stories are being told?
The five baskets and wall hangings reweave stories that are difficult to carry. These baskets make visible the textures and forms created through past-present-future materials, words, relationships, and practices to let you know that we are still here. We have not and can not disappear. The basket materials and contents reweave and respond to practices that bring us into contact with difference, which invite opportunities to co-create through a ‘connected rhizomatic we’.
Look closely - nothing is as it seems - chicken wire holds the mechanism to reweave words and materials. The handles hold childhood memories, twisted thesis words, lemongrass, she-oak spindles, bamboo and leather offcuts.
The looms that we carry reweave, repattern encounters with Arrernte Country and the country of our birthplaces - Ireland, Western Victoria and a church lawn.
The italicised re is a generative prefix, as in, rethinking, rewalking, reweaving, returning. In this way, nothing is lost, nor is any story fixed once and for all. What humans know or classify as “basket” or “chicken wire” have storied lives that resist a fixed or given determination.
Walking Country. Wendy Cowan, Wendy Taleo and delia
Walking Arrernte Country in the season when snakes are hibernating, I have come to know that Arrernte Country and the country of my birth, are agentic and connected through the twist and turns of the serpent's way. Through these daily rhythms I have come to know that my skin is not separate from the warm rocks I touch in passing. This is a ‘skin basket’ gathered to retell connecting stories.
pestle and mortar. Wendy Cowan and delia
Story as told by Wendy - for over two decades delia and I have worked collaboratively on creative projects in London, Dublin and Mparntwe-Alice Springs. These collaborations rethink political in/justices as they appear with all of their entangled inheritances. “Pertle and mortal” is a delia’s carry-all basket.
Story as told by delia - As crone, snag, space and time hopping philosopher, i tell you only once - i am not a figment of anyone's imagination, least of all yours.
Materials: plastic bag tops, ticking ribbon, seals from yoghurt containers, florist paper, and un/knotty words printed on dressmakers interface.
Education Theory and Philosophy reweavings . Wendy and delia
Words written quickly in an education journal to disrupt its linear narrative and abstract positioning. The bag shows a weaver’s collection of patterns. These weavings augment the structure of the bag, with colours revealing the weft.
Lunch bag, Wendy Taleo
What is more nostalgic of education and school days than the lunch bag?
As technology is intertwined with education, this work connects the materials of cables, compact discs and audio leads across the outside surface of the bag. It provides an insight into the structure within. With a nod to the telephone cords that tethered us to the machine, this bag asks you to pause and think about the rapid technology changes and how it impacts education across the generations.
Words from Wendy Cowan “knotty thesis” are woven at the front of the bag and a reversible poem (read it top down or bottom up) dictated by the mirrored surface of the compact discs on the other side.
Diffracted
Patterns
Now show
Touch of
Entangled beings.
Picnic Basket, Wendy Taleo
This basket has the gentle curve of a picnic basket. Using upcycled and newly claimed materials, patterns are woven into the wire warp and weft. I use communication materiality as a structure to bring to light intersections of education theory and mapping. Maps are a way of telling stories and wayfinding. In this piece the crocheted fibre connects in a seamless map.
The handles are reclaimed from my mother’s stash, adding an illusion of practicality of this work. The poem and words are taken from writings of Wendy Cowan, setting the orientation for this work. The tag indicates the maker's mark, the urge we have to check labels to see who made them and attach value to the item because of this. Techniques of weaving, crochet and restructuring common household items are employed in this bag.
Coffee bag wall hangings
These hangings are paused in their work. As a nod to a history of coffee houses and the literary discourse and practices that happen there. These weavings reveal different aspects of undone theory, entanglements, reworking and patterning. We use them to anchor this exhibition to this gathering space beside the machine that roasts the coffee beans.
These two bags (Coffee bag weaving 1 & 3, Wendy Taleo) use weaving techniques to disrupt the story of the purpose of the coffee bag. Upsetting the pattern of text printed on two bags, it’s a letter puzzle that needs a good dose of caffeine to fathom. In undone theory it is the absence of thread that allows us to read the words and see through the jute fabric to what lies beneath. The overall shape is like a bookmark, a place we pause to think. ‘Entanglement’ is a theory word that comes from many disciplines. In this instance, (Coffee bag weaving 2, Wendy Cowan) I am thinking of the entangled inseparability of working as a teacher, weaver and writer. For example, when I walk into a classroom, I'm entangled (woven into) the lives of the students, colleagues, curriculum, and the place where teaching and learning is situated. . Separateness is an illusion. I am committed to paying attention to these entanglements. What patterns are being made? What stories are being told?
Check out more images on Wendy Cowans website. Knotty baskets - a tale of (dis)content.
We are grateful to The Roastery for making this space available and providing the hessian coffee bags. Photography by Eremaya Albrecht 2024.
We acknowledge the Arrernte peoples of these unceded lands of Mparntwe-Alice Springs.
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