Heirloom WIP

This work explores new ways to use textiles to attend to my familial relationships and to process emotions associated with the fragmented communication. Starting from a discarded pillowcase and fabric offcuts I have been collecting, I also wanted to reuse the cut-up cotton thread I had left from the recent eco dyeing workshop, as well as other threads found around the studio.

The work in progress draws from familial oral history and embodied intergenerational knowledge of hand sewing and stitching and is my first attempt at incorporating into my work objects such as jewellery.

By stitching together various offcuts leftover from different sewing projects, I wanted to materialise a sense of reverence for the labour behind textile products inherited from my mother. I have also come to ‘frame’ the composition made of waste textiles and contextualise them amongst cherished pieces of her broken costume jewellery as a way to challenge systems of values in relation to art history. This jewellery set was originally bought for the wedding of now emotionally distanced family members and is used as a symbol of temporality of intergenerational communication.