Memory is the Seamstress
16 - 19 January 2025
Private View :
Thursday 16th January 2025
Silkworm Collective present works conjuring imageries in which memory is uncertain, challenged, and abstracted into material and sculptural manipulations.
Memory is the Seamstress
Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind.
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
In this exhibition by Silkworm Collective, fluid and immersive works are presented throughout the gallery, alongside communal artworks that visitors have the opportunity to add to. These will be accompanied by a creative writing workshop, an embroidery workshop, and a perfumery workshop.
Memory, as Woolf denotes, is inconsistent. After long enough, memory can become myth, it can become legend. Memory can also be secret, known by only one or two bearers, and held by them. Only if it is spoken aloud and passed on can it survive. Memories rely on storytellers for their survival, and the artists in the exhibition know this. They intuitively weave their memories as stories, with words, with scent, with memorial, and as secrets. It is not for us to know which elements are embellished, which accounts are verbatim. Memories are but stories, and everybody knows the best stories are ever changing.
Events
Threading Memory, Silkworm Collective, Saturday 18th January 3-5pm, APT Gallery.
Threading Memory is a generative piece of work created through community workshops that comprise other artists’ embroideries on a large strip of loose weave fabric. Where stitch dissolves into each other, the work prompts experimentation, sharing, and meditation, playing with memory and thought through the tactile nature of textile. Conversations and connections are made concurrent with creating this material landscape. In this two hour workshop we will practice somatic breathing before embroidering together and contemplating the meditative nature of stitch. This work will be on display for visitors to add to throughout the exhibition.
Hidden Remembrances, Silkworm Collective, Friday 17th January 1-2pm, APT Gallery.
The concept for this communal artwork and workshop comes from the themes in Cleo Nelson’s exhibition work which will feature handwritten text that is not visible for the viewer to read. Building on previous workshops she has led in confessional writing, Nelson along with Silkworm Collective will invite participants to respond to a memory based prompt with the knowledge that nobody will ever know what they have written. These thoughts will then be placed in miniature envelopes and hung from a branch on display in the gallery. This work will be on display for visitors to add to throughout the exhibition.