This site specific work by Shane Waltener at the Siobhan Davies Studios explores the relationship between lacemaking and dance. The piece illustrated here, entitled Stairwell Suite, was made by dancers acting as human bobbins as they travelled up and down the staircase holding large wooden bobbins with thread wound round them. A video of the work being produced runs on a screen next to the staircase and shows the elegant movements of the dancers throwing the bobbins between them over the stairwell to twist and weave the lace pattern.
The other lace pieces in the exhibition are Ready Steady Stitch, a series of small architectural plans of the Studio that have been used as the prickings for bobbin lace. They form half stitch ovals and resemble the edgings for a series of tiny mats, but the use of coloured threads suggests the patterns formed by dance notation.
Lace making and dance notation are woven together very cleverly in this exhibition and the stairwell at the Studio provides a light and airy framework for the work.
No comments:
Post a Comment