Outdoor Weave-In, 2011
Mixed fibre yarns, cotton and jute twine
Powerhouse Museum Discovery Centre
13 August through to April 2012
A site specific installation by Shane Waltener with participants at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre.
Created over the course of one day (Saturday 13 August 2011) during Sydney Design, the installation consists of a series interconnecting woven pathways inspired by ‘desire lines’, paths that are developed by erosion caused by footfall. In this case these paths were stitched rather than created by footfall, and instead of describing the shortest way from a point of origin to a destination, the artist and the participants meandered through the grove, joining other paths as they stitched their way through it. The work is not in any way a mechanical reproduction of a pre planned design, but a physical manifestation (in stitch) of the participants’ negotiation between their own making, and the environment they found themselves in.
The result is a large web like piece of fabric, that links, and appear to support, a number of trees in the grove, and prompts the visitors and passers to take a fresh look at the historic eucalyptus plantation as they walk alongside it.
Thank you to the Discovery Centre visitors who participated in the creation of this work and to the Baulkham Hills and Hills College of TAFE Event Management students who worked as artist assistants on the day.
