- Venue
- Salts Mill
- Starts
- Sunday, May 30, 2021
- Ends
- Sunday, June 6, 2021
- Address
- Salts Mill, Victoria Road, Saltaire, West Yorkshire BD18 3LA
- Location
- Yorkshire
- Organiser
- Salts Mill, 11 am to 4 pm daily
At the heart of the large-scale installation, occupying the industrial scale temporary gallery space, is a village of hundreds of small hand-crafted houses. The houses have been carefully sculpted using special needle-felting techniques to a design developed by Tindale. These skills have then been shared with members of the public through a series of workshops. Contributing to the collective growth and development of the model village, the houses created by groups of workshop participants, from the local area, Manchester and further afield, sit alongside those created by the artist, thereby bringing various diverse communities together.
In a process akin to a kind of alchemy, loose natural wool fibres are transformed into a solid material state, becoming ‘felt’. The repetitive action of working the wool with a needle, to compact and sculpt the fibres, becomes a meditative process. Intended as a therapeutic activity for those involved, it encourages us to reflect on the consideration to health and wellbeing shown by the philanthropic industrialist, Titus Salt, when creating the model village of Saltaire.
In responding to the historic and contemporary contexts of the mill and village, the work explores the relationship between industry and home, the communities that develop and the supportive, symbiotic relationship that results.
