Program
CRISIS COLLECTION - bodies that do not fit into workwear
costume sewing bee with Lee Stevens
16 Feb 2 - 7 pm | 22 Feb 2 - 7 pm | 7 Mar 2 - 7 pm
WE CAME FROM OPPOSITE SIDES AND CAMPED TOGETHER
wintercounts, cyanotype with Carolin Seeliger
23 Feb 2 - 7 pm
SPINNING THOUGHTS & WEAVING WORDS
reading, screening & hangout
29 Feb 7 - 11 pm
DAS TRAGEN DEINES SCHNECKENHAUSES TRÄGT
ZUM TAGTRÄUMEN DES NACHTIGELS BEI
cloth sculptures to wear with Kathrin Köster & Daniel Kupferberg
1 Mar 10 am - 2 pm
SPECULATIVE GENITAL FOUNTAINS
Clay Workshop with Kristina Becker & Petja Ivanova
8 Mar 3 - 5 pm
Traces by Adela Yawitz
The nature of fabric is its relation to a body, a cloth that covers our nakedness with social context. Textiles are shaped by the bodies within and around them, they mark the body both in its presence and its absence. Clothes communicate with each other, form allegiances and groups; we use them not only to cover our figures but also to extend ourselves, to communicate our politics, occupations, identities or aspirations through them.
The exhibition follows the same line of thought: it provides a shell, an elastic fabric for bodies to enter into and take shape within, alone and in interaction with each other. The artworks in the exhibition create a space for workshops, performative gestures and participation; they take on various shapes and costumes, and are transformed through their use and interaction. The artists are concerned with the social inscription on the body through cloth, with fabrics that tie groups together — and with actively creating such communities through common experiences.
Weaving, sowing and adorning textiles are crafts that require communal effort, traditionally passed on through women. In their individual works as well as in the communal experience of making the exhibition, the participating artists aim to give new meanings to these materials and techniques, while honoring the history of such work. They have therefore attempted to realize the exhibition through a non-hierarchical working structure. Beyond each of their contributions, they have collectively developed the exhibition’s concept and progression. In their collaboration, they aim to reflect the interconnectivity that is inherent to fabric, which may be woven out of various materials, layered or sown together, creating tactile meeting points and overlaps.
Lee Stevens’ costumes play with codings of wealth and work on the body: knock-off Hermes scarves and other symbols of class are transformed into robes, leisure and manual work attire. Petja Ivanova explores insects’ exoskeletons, a parallel to human clothing or armor, which has recently been discovered to have healing powers. Artistic collaborators Kathrin Köster and Daniel Kupferberg’s large-scale textile work is based on a drawing made with Libeth depicting spiraling galaxies and lines of connection between them. The delicate translation of the drawing into a new materiality – embroidery on a bedsheet, made in collaboration with Theoni Violidaki – emphasizes the details of the colorful, swirling forms. Emma Wolf Haugh’s flags propose a new iconography for queer cruising, a code which can be read by a shared community. Her textiles aim at marking a social space for queer sexual connection and promoting visibility that is also safe within otherwise heteronormative public space. Carolin Seeliger amplifies the North American indigenous tradition of the “Winter Counts”, pictorial markings of yearly events made on the inside of animal hides. Her photographic printing likewise tattoos the skin or textile with personal and collective experiences, synchronizing time and meaning. Finally, Amelie Marei Löllmann’s intervention divides the space with a concrete ‘curtain’; the gendered connotations of architecture and textile meet in this unexpectedly fragile, porous object.
»Traces«
Emma Haugh, Petja Ivanova, Kathrin Köster & Daniel Kupferberg, Amelie Marei Löllmann, Carolin Seeliger, Lee Stevens
Opening Fri 14 Feb 7 pm – 0 am
15 Feb – 8 Mar 2020
Closing Sun 8 Mar 2 - 6 pm
frontviews at Schau Fenster
Lobeckstraße 30 -35
10969 Berlin
with the very kind support of Schau Fenster and
Projektförderung Bezirksamt Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
related links
Emma Haugh
Petja Ivanova
Kathrin Köster
Daniel Kupferberg
Amelie Marei Löllmann
Carolin Seelinger
Lee Stevens