CELIA PYM
Tuesday 5th May
Worked with artist Celia Pym on Exercise 5: Damage Detection
On her work:
SENSATIONAL: Touching fabric as that which sits immediately close to the skin for a period of time. The charged nature of clothes: textiles and fabrics has having body memory: the elbows sag in certain places because of the wearers body and use. Garments as moving, responding and changing according to changes by the wearer and the environment. It lives in its condition and wear and the things that happen to and around it. Fabrics smell and textiles have sense of a person which become reminders, transitionary, holding memory, why they are treasures.
TEXTILES AS TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS: as capable of transcending from one place to another. She’s often drawn to negative space, where holes are and things are lost, is filled and repurposed: the orange jumper darned with yellow.
INTIMACY + TRUST: Caring and trusting nature of mending, repairing and maintaining. The level of vulnerability in handing someone an item to repair, anxiety, guilt and feeling indebted.
RESIDENCY: Paired healthcare professional + craftsperson/artist, medical students working as students who dissect, with artist who repairs and creates. Modelling the care relationship in the dissection room: caring for their stuff, replicating the feeling for having someone care for your, show evidence of it through action, giving and receiving. Using the object as an opportunity to open up and inspire conversation: the opening object. Engaging through personal items.
Costume archive project considered status of objects, and decisions about their future and respect for that which is broken. Acknowledging when to continue or intervene with damage: the archive who permitted using the disintegrating ballet costumes for extended performances despite ‘SORTIR’ tag. Repair as visibility. Repair as never the same or directly replicated, as intuitive.
TOUCH: Often objects become emotionally charged, especially garments. Touch as a method to moving through dissociation. e.g. student who fainted because of the weight of arm of body felt like the arm of their grandmother.
Ideas:
ongoing commitments. endurance. removal. adaptation. care situation. reciprocity. interest. trust. fondness. excessive use. wear and tear. unexpected damage. threadbare. fashion. identity