Decorating Dissidence: WEAVE IT!
Installation view of WEAVE IT! with works by (left) Sarah-Joy Ford, ‘Gloved’ 1 & 2, 2019; (center) film still of Camilla Tønder, ‘BUILD A BODY’, 2017; (right) Lokka Kong (Kristen) ‘Anthropocene’, 2016. Photo by Leo Garbutt.
Exhibition
30 October - 06 November 2019
To celebrate 100 years of Bauhaus, Decorating Dissidence are bringing together performance and visual artists, community groups and craft practitioners as a response to the women’s weaving workshop.
The women of the Bauhaus had no real other choice but to work in weaving. As the painter Oskar Schlemmer said in 1920: 'Where there's wool, there's also a woman who will spin it, even if it is just to pass the time'. The weaving workshop that emerged within the Bauhaus was artistically progressive but lacking in gender parity. Nevertheless, many such as Anni Albers, Gunta Stölzl, Michiko Yamawaki and Lilly Reich made made it a radical site of experimentation and exploration.
Using weaving as a starting point to both celebrate and challenge the avant-garde work of the Bauhaus, the exhibition considers the legacies of craft from modernism to the contemporary through a variety of practices that touch on wider themes of process, movement, form and space.
The launch party will see performances by Raisa Kabir and Julie Rose Bower, as well as a chance to explore the exhibition and dance to DJs.
Exhibiting artists include: Madi Acharya-Baskerville, Betül Aksu, Majeda Clarke, Fiona Curran, Michelle House, Sarah-Joy Ford, Seungwon Jung, Kristen Kong, Naa Teki Lebar, Sophie Skach, Camilla Tønder and a screening of the documentary Güzel Derman (devised, directed and produced by Nataša Cordeaux, Cheyenne Ritfeld & Ricarda Theobald).
All photos by Leo Garbutt.
About Decorating Dissidence:
Decorating Dissidence is an interdisciplinary project exploring the political, aesthetic and conceptual qualities of feminine-coded arts from modernism to the contemporary. It brings together art practitioners, makers, curators, activists and academics to break down disciplinary boundaries and find new ways to critically engage with feminist art history. It opens up a space for intergenerational dialogue between contemporary and modernist makers, in order to reveal the lasting legacies of marginalised women artists who worked at the dissident intersections between established mediums and modes of modern art.
Curators: Jade French, Suzanna Petot, Lottie Whalen