Sampler at the Craft Rally

Well my head is well and truly full of planning for the Craft Rally event curated by Helen Carnec, that we're taking part in on Thursday 25th March at Chelsea College of Art & Design.  Click on the link above for details of how to book tickets for the day.  Helen's pulled together a diverse range of events, discussions and workshops, so I can hope some of you can make it down to contribute.

Several of the sampler-cultureclash collective will be taking part in an improvised performance in the evening at approx 7pm, along with some special invited guests thrown into the mix.  We've no idea what we've got planned yet but I promise an interesting line up.

Look forward to seeing you there.
x

"Manchester, so much to answer for.."

I don't know why but everytime I say Manchester, I automatically follow it with the words of Morrissey "..so much to answer for" from the Smith's song "Suffer Little Children".

Anyway, not sure why I'm ramblin' on about that, but to update you on a great day that we spent, a couple of weeks ago, with students on the BA.Hons Embroidery Course at Manchester Metropolitan University.  Having spent my twenties living, working and dj-ing in Manchester I always love going back.

In the morning we gave a presentation about the sampler-cultureclash project to a packed lecture theatre of maybe 100 students or so. Needless to say, we were incredibly nervous but excited about the opportunity to talk about the project with the students. It was great that two of the collaborators - Jason and Yusra - were there, particularly given that Jason had just arrived back from a month in India and Yusra was there with her new child Azariah, only 4 weeks old.  That was particularly special!

The presentation seemed to go down really well, with lots of questions and very positive feedback from the students and tutors.  If you were there I'd love to hear your honest comments about the presentation and the project.  You see I never know whether I'm rattlin on, or presenting the story in an articulate and interesting way!  Hopefully the latter but probably somewhere in between.

We'd been invited up to help kick start a project the first year students were working on about samplers.  To help them think about different ways of sampling, what sampling is and could be, and how historical objects and traditional processes can inform contemporary creative practice and vica versa.

In the afternoon we ran a short workshop with about 30 students from the 1st year of the course, plus a couple of other students who were exploring the connection between sound and stitch in their work. The aim was to create an improvised collective sound piece combining word, pattern and sound.  We worked in three groups, with each student having a go at creating pixel drawings both individually and collectively, some of which the students working with Jason then translated via Reaktor into sound, whilst another group worked with Yusra exploring word and the voice through creating their own collective vocal orchestras.  The groups then rotated so they took part in each excercise.

Here's a link to a selection of photos from the workshop.
sampling manchester
I particularly love the way that the collective pixel drawings take shape as people contribute.  A word left unfinished then being deconstructed and dissolving into a single square.

I'm waiting to get copies of the word excercises back, so I'll post a selection of the individual and collective poems in a future post, so watch this space.  Jason and I plan to work on the sound piece the students started during the day, hopefully going back and working with some of the students further.

I can't wait to see and hear what the students come up with over the next few weeks, and I hope to go back up north to talk to them about how things are progressing, and of course to see the finished work.  I also want to to go back into the amazing room full of all manner of embroidery machines to think about how we might access that resource to inform and create future work.

So a huge huge thank you to Isabel, Kate and everyone from MMU and of course in particular a massive thank you to all the students for such a warm welcome and for making the day so much fun and for throwing yourselves into the workshop so enthusiastically.  Good luck with the project.

We left feeling very inspired.

Singing away to the click of the shuttle

Well this week is well and truly packed with sampling shenanagins, in Manchester and later in the week in Tunbridge Wells.  More about both of those in my next couple of posts.

To kick start the week, on Monday evening I started a short six-week evening class about English Folk songs at the English Folk Dance and Song Society hq  - Cecil Sharpe House in Camden.  This has been inspired by my trips to Romania and Turkey and conversations with members of the sampler collective about folk, and other popular, songs from around the world that are sung whilst either making textiles, or are about textiles.

I wanted to start my research by finding out more about songs from england, scotland, wales and ireland and for the last few months I've wanted to visit the EFDSS library and to search their amazing archive of recordings and printed broadsides.  So when I found out about the course, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.  30 of us crammed into the room, a much more diverse group of people than I thought it might be.  It was great, so six weeks of listening to, discussing, debating and learning more about the traditional songs, in particular those recorded and collected by the likes of Cecil Sharpe, Peter Kennedy and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

We were given a number of handouts to take away and read. So on the train up to manchester later that evening I started to read through them.  The first that caught my eye, needless to say given my interest in music and textiles and the fact that I grew up in Lancashire, was an article entitled " Singing away to the click of the shuttle - musical life in the handloom weaving communities of Lancashire" - written by a R.P. Elbourne and published in the Local Historian Vol 12 No 1 (feb 1976).  In summary the article explores the nature of pre-industrial music making in Lancashire by people involved in domestic based hand weaving production, even exploring the weaver-poet.  See, it's all connected, and by now I should really no longer be surprised!!!!

It's a great little article, and I particularly liked the section about the Deighn Laycocks or Larks of Dean, named as such due to the beauty of their singing.

"In his autobiography, the cotton spinner Moses Heap places the work-rhythms of domestic industry in a fresh perspective: ' A great deal of hand-loom weaving was carried on in the homes, both cotton and woollen goods...but many of our musical friends were so fond of singing and fiddling that their looms would be idle until about Tuesday night, then they would work night and day to finish their allotted task before Saturday.'

At peak periods such as before the Christmas holidays he explains that "Play hours were nearly given up, and whole nights would be spent at the loom, weavers occasionally striking up a hymn or Christmas carol in chorus.  A few hours of the late morning would perhaps be given to rest; work would then be resumed, and the singing and rattle of shuttles would be almost incessent during the day."

Oh, and I highly recommend the book English Folk Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd published by Penguin as part of its English Journeys series.

Grafitti stitch chairs for Haiti appeal

As part of the San Francisco leg of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition, curated by Ele Carpenter, that we've been taking part in we invited visitors to graffiti stitch two yellow armchairs (see images below) whilst they listened to a selection of audio tracks created by the sampler-cultureclash collective.
It's great to see how much the chairs have been transformed during the exhibition, from blank yellow canvas into a new archive of communal stitched work, with personal tags, warm wishes and even an english penny stitched into the chair requesting "a penny for your thoughts" - beautiful.

The chairs will be auctioned alongside a wide range of other contemporary and folk art on 21 February in the city of Tiburon to raise money for the survivors of the recent terrible earthquake in Haiti.  The auctioneer will be curator Ted Cohen.  Thanks to everyone at the museum and Ele for helping to arrange all this, and including the work in the auction.

We are delighted that the chairs, decorated by so many people during the exhibition, will be going to such an important cause, and we hope that they will raise as much money as possible, and end up in a good home.

The Auction takes place on Sunday 21 February
Silent Auction 12-4.30pm / Live Auction 5pm
Tiburon Town Hall, 1505 Tiburon Blvd
USA.

I'll let you know what happens.

Sampling 2010

Hello folks and belated new year's greetings from all the Sampler collective.
2010 looks like it's going to be another fun packed year of experimenting and collaboration.  All being well we start the year with launching the sampler section of the V&A website, then working with students from the BA Embroidery course at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Whitworth Art Gallery, followed by a project with Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery working with young people in the area exloring the museum's amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware, then in early summer we hope to bring together all the collaborators from the UK, Romania and Turkey for the first workshop and performance in Bucharest.  My next post will be a round up of my trip to Turkey last year.

If that wasn't enough we're starting to explore connections for a collaboration in India.

Speaking of which, last week I had a brilliant catch up with Jason before he headed off to India to take part in the Jaipur International Heritage Festival.  Here's a fantastic clip of Jason and Morchang player Raies Khan performing last year at Jodhpur RIFF.
As Jason and I chatted about ideas and aspirations for the sampler project over the next year, we talked about social events that bring people together through song, music, poetry and dance focussed around textiles. Jason then introduced me to the amazing film Latcho Drom, which through music and song, follows the Roma communities of India, Egypt, Turkey, Hungary, Romania and Spain.  A hugely inspiring, uplifting, challenging, upsetting, thought provoking and powerful film.

Contemporary Utopia Management

Well today, after the religious holidays, I had my first meeting with Esra and Ece from CUMA, Contemporary Utopia Management, a not for profit arts organisation that in their words "aims to activate urban and rural communities by creating contemporary art projects and acting as a mentor for arts organisations and initiatives".

I really liked their ethos and their approach, and some of the projects they had done, particularly those working with rural communities.  They were planning a flash mob event on Saturday, apparently the first in Turkey, and an idea I really like..the Istanbul Complaints Choir.  Given the issues around freedom of speech, this seems like a very brave initiative.  So I've registered my mobile number and wait to hear where to meet.

They were both really friendly and incredibly helpful, providing me with a whole list of potential people to contact.  Just what I was hoping for.  As with Bucharest you just need to meet some people on the ground who are open and well connected, and know what's happening and a whole world starts to open up.  I couldn't have asked for a more welcoming and perfect start.

Thank you Esra and Ece for a great welcome and such generosity:))

You can find out more about CUMA at www.c-u-m-a.org

The pomegranate

If there's one fruit that sums up istanbul, it seems to be the pomegranate. Street vendors on every corner surrounded by mounds of pomegranates and oranges selling freshly squeezed juice for 1 or 2 lr.

The pomegranate has of course featured heavily in the arts and crafts (including textile designs) of parts of south east europe and south west asia, the fruit originating from Iran, and has significance to all the main religions. Here I have to do more research.

I'm not aware of it in either english or romanian design or folklore, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I still remember, when I was about ten years old, the day my dad returned from a business trip to Turkey (he worked in the coffee trade) with a pomegranate. It was the most exotic and alien fruit we had all seen up to that point in our lives. The whole family stood around it wondering what to do with it and how to eat it!!

I wonder whether the fruit is still an icon used by contemporary turkish designers. And whether the vendors are just for tourists or frequented by locals too.

More pondering of the pomegranate to do. Wikipedia as always is a good place to start.