Art in Liverpool: Re-View Textiles ‘Hospitality Reviewed’

From the Archives: Liverpool Independents Biennial 2012 ‘Hospitality Reviewed’ project and exhibition.

Re-view Textiles is a group of artists who work with a variety of textiles and in diverse disciplines. meeting regularly to work together on exhibitions and events around Merseyside.

The latest project is an exhibition at Liverpool’s Baltic Creative, based on the theme of “Hospitality” as part of Liverpool Independents Biennial. The project started with artists being put into groups of 3 to work collaboratory. Each artist created their own piece in their own style and interpretation of the brief. When completed the works were swapped with another artist in the group, until every artist had worked on 3 pieces, adding and changing the works to finish with 3 unique pieces of art.

I worked with Wei Gan and Susan Comer, below is the outcome of the final piece I worked on.

Nomads

Wood, linen

Amanda Jones, artist 1

Wei Gan, artist 2

Susan Comer, artist 3

The first artist, Wei, printed on linen with coffee and Chinese ink drawings. The second artist Susan then deconstructed the fabric and added texture by felting the fabric. The final piece is 5 wooden ‘dolls’ dressed in the fabric sent to third artist Amanda, which she made into clothing. Each doll has a luggage tag around their neck to represent children who were evacuees during the Second World War with the name of a place they are leaving and the place that is hosting them – each of these refers to places Amanda has moved from and to in her own  life. The 5th tag is slightly different from the rest as the word host is changed to home. The dolls are carrying bags made of jute twine and wood, as well as a fabric tea bag made by Wei; Amanda also added a crocheted shawl and hat to some of the dolls. The idea was that places make people and people make places.

Each artist responded to the brief in a different way, resulting in the fabric being deconstructed and changed both physically and allegorically, however it retains its original connotation, fused with the other artists input. The artists hosted the fabric and added to it by leaving their personal artistic imprint; similar to how people move around the world leaving an impact on each place they visit and in turn, how those places influence the person’s development throughout their life.

It was very interesting to see how everyone interpreted the brief – I was nervous and excited about what I was going to receive and what would happen to the piece I was sending on. We only met up at the end of the project, so we were responding to what we received, which was challenging  as I felt I had to be both true to my own practice but also sensitive to the other artists in my group.