This project is gathering momentum.
We had a Shape.. meeting with everyone in London the other week to discuss PR/audience development. It was at Oxford House in Betnnal green, just by Weavers Field , appropriately enough…Just being with everyone, talking ourselves into the future of our respective projects acted like a catalyst for me, it made it very real and I have begun to really enjoy the process of wrapping and also thinking about the space and the audience who will be experiencing the work. I wrapped 5 of my mothers objects – a set of keys, her wallet, her cheque book, her camera and a Persian cookery book that she and then I used so much that the pages went transparent with cooking oil.
I used green fabric, my new favourite colour, a socio-political act given what is currently unfolding in Iran, her country, right now. I then bound them in fuschia pink yarn and the finality of this act was somehow thrilling and devastating at the same time..there is now a boundary of cloth between myself and what these objects came to mean – they were key items of hers that I felt I could not throw way but I didn’t want the responsibility of keeping anymore. So now they are part of a collective legacy in cloth and I think she would have enjoyed their poetic relocation into an artwork of mine!
I then added two objects of my own – my wedding shoes,.They had broken straps but carried such strong memories of the slowest, most delicious walk down the grassy aisle towards the river where we said our vows. Since I wore red and it was a blue moon I bound them in strips of my red silk dressing gown and blue kilim wool.
I remember telling myself to go slowly and take in everyone’s face as I passed, to take snapshots so that in the moments before I die, I can replay them and experience a sense of communal joy and love that that day resonated with (is this weird??). This week it will be five years since we married, my daughter was born and my mum passed away – in that order.
