Some theories on labour, craft, and the body, that I shared with an open unit space lecture series on the course I teach on.
Often in my artistic practice I build ‘structures’ in my work/weaving/machine/looms/body looms – building and performing with craft/industrialised spaces and technology. I try to get participants/students/learners to think about how structures are created in society, and how they are replicated and rein-scribed – how weaving can be a visual and material metaphor for building our society – but also how we may deconstruct it. Weaving technology is developed in proximity to the craft labourer’s body, and thus no labour or work can be divorced from the body.
Some screenshots of the online note taking space created, looking at some of the ways feminist textile art is whitewashed, and also how performance and textiles can embody the visceral politic, and showcase post colonial ways of thinking and learning through the body – and critiquing the material and not just metaphorical structures in our daily lives/worlds.
I used the lecture to discuss positionality and historical contexts to the themes artists use and employ in their work, and how the positionality of the artist, the ethics and responsibility of that artist can speak volumes about the subject matter – who gets to speak for whom, and how we must instil this in all our practices, and learning spaces. Not all history is spoken about, and when it is, who speaks over and for others? Who is left out of the conversation?