NINA KROGH

Texere is a collaborative project between Alejandra Torres, at the time a master student in Textiles, and Nina Krogh, at the time master student in Art and Public Space. The work explores the process of weaving as a space for dialogue and co-creation between two people. In the performance we explore the playful and social process of putting up a warp. A warp is the basic structure of any woven textile.

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As a result of our conversations during the performance we started talking about the relationship between text and textile. We discovered how the many languages use references and metaphors which originates from the weaving process and world of textiles. Being one of the oldest crafts in any civilization, the weaving process has become a way to describe the world around us. In English you find expressions like “loose ends” to describe things that still need to be done or explained. In Norwegian a troublesome woman could be called  “hespetre”, which is a tool used to untangle yarn.

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The installation transformed itself into becoming a visualization of our conversation. When two people talk they throw words and sentences back and forth, like a ball of yarn being tossed from one to the other. Their thoughts intertwine and cross over to build a conversation, a relation. Like the threads of a wrap they slowly building a textile structure. A good conversation is like making a warp, it takes time and it takes two. Once the fundaments of the warp have been made, the work of building a lasting relation, a lasting textile can begin.

 

The work was performed in Seilduken gallery and in Cuba park where the public joined in on making the warp. The work is inspired by a study trip to a weaving community in the village Chinchero in Peru where we learnt  natural dyeing and back-strap weaving organised by the Centre for Traditional Textiles in Cusco.