THREADS

wool, wire

2018

The textile installation presents place full of "loose knots". Every knot takes the viewer in person's head - decisions, ideas, hopes - all that build the personal life's path or labyrinth of life. The knot is a little microcosm and when untightened it represents solved problems (with Ariadne's threadmethod applied). We walk further with every decision and action in order to construct our future. Every knot is made of a lot of other smaller knots and this embodies the complexity of human's nature. I used the technique macrame for covering the wire with wool - it builds structure that looks like DNA molecule. Ariadne's thread, named for the legend of Ariadne, is a solving of a problem with multiple apparent means of proceeding - such as a physical maze, a logic puzzle, or an ethical dilemma - through an exhaustive application of logic to all available routes.

The labor is part of the creative process and connects my work with the labor of many women that had worked with textiles hundreds of years ago. I want to make this connection, to feel it and thus to show it in my artwork. I spent hours of doing endlessly the same macrame knot over and over in order to get closer to the essence of work of a textile worker. After reading Elisabeth Barber's "Women's Work" where she describes the nature of women's work, what textiles tell us about women's social roles in different ages and societies, I found many matching points between textilers, mostly women, and the female artists who work with fibers and thus communicate through textiles.

The project is supported by the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria, “Debuts” program.