where it all began
all the wool my mother never knitted
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I'm visiting all the places where I have ever lived, making a journey backwards in time. While I am in these places I am knitting all the wool my (late) mother never knitted. The number of hours that I knit in each place corresponds to the number of years that I lived there. The wool maps the journey. Whilst knitting, I record the memories that come back to me connected to that place. |
All the wool my mother never knitted
England
Summer 2009 on
I began by drawing a timeline to scale that reflects the amount of time I have lived in each place and setting myself criteria for the process of knitting – how long I knitted for and how many stitches I kept on the needles in each location meant that its shape changed as it ‘mapped’ the journey. It became 70 feet long, I have shown it as an interactive living art installation both in Carlisle, the city in which I lived, and in the Bristol Live Platform. Kate saw the exhibition and was struck by the fact that several of the places on my timeline also figured in her own life, sometimes at the same time. I was excited by her suggestion that we compare timelines and our already frequent cafe meetings took on a sharper focus.
I began by drawing a timeline to scale that reflects the amount of time I have lived in each place and setting myself criteria for the process of knitting – how long I knitted for and how many stitches I kept on the needles in each location meant that its shape changed as it ‘mapped’ the journey. It became 70 feet long, I have shown it as an interactive living art installation both in Carlisle, the city in which I lived, and in the Bristol Live Platform. Kate saw the exhibition and was struck by the fact that several of the places on my timeline also figured in her own life, sometimes at the same time. I was excited by her suggestion that we compare timelines and our already frequent cafe meetings took on a sharper focus.
All the wool my mother never knitted - Sedition
Carlisle, England
September 2010
Having visited all the places I have lived, the knitting measured approximately 25 metres of varying widths representing 63 hours of knitting. During the private view of Sedition, I sat wrapped in the knitting and continued to knit for two hours, representing my time living in Carlisle since I began the journey in 2008. Over the three-month duration of the exhibition, I visited the installation from time to time in order to continue to 'knit myself ‘out of Carlisle', as it were, with an ever-decreasing number of stitches on the needles until only one remained.
All the wool my mother never knitted - Making Time
Lancaster, England
March 2011
The journey had come to an end, and so to tell its story and have witnesses to the final 'casting off' of the last stitch and finish the knitted 'time-line', I was invited to attend the 'Making Time Symposium'. During a slide show of the knitting in all its locations, I laid out the knitting on the floor of the theatre referring to each corresponding part of the journey as I did so. I then invited the audience to dialogue with me about whether to 'cast off' or not. The reactions varied from encouragement to end it to pleads not to – 'but it's your life!'
Finally I cut the wool.
Finally I cut the wool.
mapping memory
I left England in 2011 but Kate and I stayed in touch, sharing our common ground. When Kate visited me in France we already had ideas about how we might be able to express our shared experiences publicly. We began to experiment with ways of representing aspects of our life journeys, their overlaps and coincidences and divergences, in two and three dimensions and came up with the project title ‘Mapping Memory’. We continued to explore our memories, writing independently in different venues in France and England and also sharing ideas by email.
Many years on, our project has had to adjust to our changing circumstances, states of health and geographies but is still very much alive. However, we have been faced with a difficult decision: how much of what we have accumulated could, or should, we share? Initially we wrote for an audience of one: that is, for each other and much of what we produced is intensely personal. But in the belief that our experiences will speak to many, especially our faith in the fact that there is someone else out there for all of us – an ‘other to his other’ - we are proud and privileged to share our personal narratives, in the confidence that they will be met with tolerance, respect and understanding.
Many years on, our project has had to adjust to our changing circumstances, states of health and geographies but is still very much alive. However, we have been faced with a difficult decision: how much of what we have accumulated could, or should, we share? Initially we wrote for an audience of one: that is, for each other and much of what we produced is intensely personal. But in the belief that our experiences will speak to many, especially our faith in the fact that there is someone else out there for all of us – an ‘other to his other’ - we are proud and privileged to share our personal narratives, in the confidence that they will be met with tolerance, respect and understanding.