weaving Voices 01.04.2025 issuu - Flipbook - Page 64
as individual stories intertwine, creating a rich, intricate narrative.
Just as each thread in a carpet is distinct, we, the participants of
Weaving Voices, brought our own unique experiences, ideas, and
practices to the loom – or what we could call the structure facilitated
by the project.
I devote this chapter to exploring the notion that, to create effective
methodologies for communal artistic research, we, the Weaving
Voices participants first had to become a community ourselves.
Furthermore, I will analyse what elements we discovered as valuable
in this process. Curiously, the essential ingredients I identified are
not so different from those necessary for weaving. To weave a carpet,
one needs the following:
1) a loom, or in other words a working structure
2) a cosy space in which to place the loom – a comfortable space to
get to know each other and work
3) weavers and threads – individuals and their practices.
I will further elaborate on each of these aspects in the hope that
some of the elements can be applied to other community art
endeavours and discourses.
I then wonder: What characteristics does this specific frame need?102
The Weaving Voices research and outcome would ultimately be
defined by what would come into existence through a communal
sharing of activities over a period of two and a half years. The project
provided us with the structure for shared moments of embodied
experimentation to occur, and only through the act of experiencing
that undefined space would the research – ‘our final carpet’ –
become clear. Through the examples of our project, I emphasise two
important aspects necessary in a structure that intends to develop
communities capable of shared creative activity: an open space and
attitude to allow unknown actions and informed, deliberate decisions
to explore this ‘not-yet’ known space together.103
The loom
a working structure for collaborative artistic research
Artistic research carries inherent ambiguity, especially in
collaboration. The need for structure and the freedom to explore
the unknown go hand in hand. When working with many voices, a
clear framework becomes all the more crucial, as it allows people
to know how to work together and what to expect from each
other. However, for research, a balancing act between structure
and freedom is essential, as it creates space for the emergence of
unexpected creation, methodologies, perspectives, and concepts
that may alter the initial framework. All creative disciplines come to
life within a given structure: a painter needs a canvas; a singer needs
their voice and a weaver needs a loom. In collective community art
projects, metaphorically speaking, when the woven materials are the
diverse stories of participants instead of physical threads, the ‘loom’
becomes the working structure itself.
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Christiane is working on ‘the freestyle weave’ on a vertical loom, Amsterdam, April 2023.
102 In the second workshop week in Reichenow, Teresa Brayshaw brought in two statements to initiate a dialogue around the communal understanding of our research. The 昀椀rst quote attributed to Einstein states: “If we
knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” The second quote by Moshe Feldenkrais
instead proposes that “Only when you know what you are doing can you do what you want.” The juxtaposition
of the two quotes underscores the dynamic tension between exploration and structure in creative endeavours.
The conversation that followed during the workshop was an open-ended tapestry of different perspectives.
What became evident was the necessity for the structural frame to be empty, for a space where exploration
and experimentation are allowed. (See Teresa Brayshaw’s relevant thoughts in the chapter Weaving Voices as
Threads of Community, p. 175.)
103 The ‘not-yet’ is a term used by Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk who aims to ‘radicalise the local’ by facilitating the creation of dynamic and diversi昀椀ed public spaces. In the collaborative book Toward the Not-Yet: Art
as Public Practice the writers imagine and enact alternative ways of being together. Van Heeswijk, J., Hlavajova,
M. and Rakes, R. (2021) Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice. London, England: MIT Press.
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