Wind n` Bind

2021-ongoing

Fabric, glue

Wind n´ bind is an ongoing artistic research project that explores the complexity and kindness of the care economy, a shadow system that helps to maintain the monetary economy. It is a framework to experiment with merging fabric and physical actions related to the caregiving environment with a natural glue substance made from Irish Moss, red algae. By combing care rituals, algae, and t-shirts, I strive to test the capacity of the materials and the underlining ethical, social, and cultural intricacies in our anthropocentric times.

The research was exhibited, as a work in progress, in Miðpunkt in April 2021. The installation consisted of smaller sculptures, unlimited in numbers, and one large sculpture, that had a transformative shape.

The smaller sculptures from T-shirts, were made beforehand in the studio. The fabric had been submerged into seaweed glue. After the fabric had infused the glue, it was picked up at a random place and the glue is wrung out. The shape was formed by chance and directly set to dry. When the drying process was complete, it became hard and some of the seaweed was visible in the texture. I made several of these pieces, in different colours, picked randomly from the bag. Their size and shape vary.

In the installation they are placed together, in different compositions and changed daily. I used them as building blocks and made experiments with how they could balance as structures, incorporating chance by randomly picking who were stacked together.

The large sculpture, transformative shape, was also constructed of T-shirts tied together, in all colours, picked randomly from the bag. I started by tying them in a long line and fastening them as the line became longer to hocks that were already in place in the ceiling. Eventually the line was over 50 meters and covered the whole exhibition space. I then started to take it down and experimented with tying them further together.

In the end I was able to make a 10 double strand rope, the width being one embrace. The rope was around 2 meters long, leaving around 1.5 meters of string un-braided, and was hanging from one of the random hooks. The result was a balancing composition of sculptures on a small black pedestal and a massive rope, quite heavy, hanging from the ceiling and flowing to the floor.