Unraveling Together

participatory textiles collaboration with recorded Zoom performances and hand-made weavings
Artwork

Unraveling Together

2020
multimedia installation with video, textiles sculpture and prints
installation dimensions variable

VIDEO
HD video of screen recorded collaborative Zoom performances, no sound
TRT: 5 minutes

SCULPTURE
loom and unraveled threads contributed by participating Zoom performers woven with the hand-spun wool of laboratory llamas and alpacas
Loom: 23 H × 20 W × 1 D in (58.42 H × 50.8 W × 2.54 D cm)

PRINTS
glass prints of AI-generated transcriptions of recorded Zoom conversations during collaborative unraveling performances
Prints: 16 H × 24 W in (40.64 H × 60.96 W cm) each, may also be hung vertically
Installation: 16 H × 196 W in (40.64 H × 498 W cm), may also be installed vertically

Unraveling Together blends several recorded Zoom sessions between the artist and both friends and strangers. Participants unraveled a textile while sharing personal stories relating to the coronavirus pandemic, textiles and meaningful materialities. Unraveling Together is a series of weavings created during a 9-month artist residency at BioBAT Art Space. The weavings include threads contributed by participants of the Unraveling Together Zoom performance project. These threads are woven with the hand-spun wool of laboratory llamas and alpacas who are used to produce antibodies for human drugs including vaccines and antiviral treatments.

Collaborators: Amy Hibbs, Beatrice Zaidenberg, Billy Renkl, Chloe Bensahel, Christen Clifford, Christine Duval, Claire Pillsbury, David Spangler, Efren Adkins, Elaine Young, Elizabeth Hallwood, Eric Theise, Gene Felice, Heather McMordie, Jessica Anderson, Jessica Harvey, Jo Neil, Laurah Hosaluk, Lina Lopes, Lorrie Fredette, Marc Boyson, Patricia Tinajero, Roberta Buiani, Ruth Tabancay, Stefanie Iverson Cabral, Stephanie Moore, Susan Smith, Zelda Zinn

Unraveling Together blends several recorded Zoom sessions between the artist and both friends and strangers. Participants unraveled a textile while sharing personal stories relating to the coronavirus pandemic, textiles and meaningful materialities. Unraveling Together is a series of weavings created during a 9-month artist residency at BioBAT Art Space. The weavings include threads contributed by participants of the Unraveling Together Zoom performance project. These threads are woven with the hand-spun wool of laboratory llamas and alpacas who are used to produce antibodies for human drugs including vaccines and antiviral treatments.

Collaborators: Amy Hibbs, Beatrice Zaidenberg, Billy Renkl, Chloe Bensahel, Christen Clifford, Christine Duval, Claire Pillsbury, David Spangler, Efren Adkins, Elaine Young, Elizabeth Hallwood, Eric Theise, Gene Felice, Heather McMordie, Jessica Anderson, Jessica Harvey, Jo Neil, Laurah Hosaluk, Lina Lopes, Lorrie Fredette, Marc Boyson, Patricia Tinajero, Roberta Buiani, Ruth Tabancay, Stefanie Iverson Cabral, Stephanie Moore, Susan Smith, Zelda Zinn

...at the beginning of the pandemic, I was invited to do an artist residency at BioBAT Art Space at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. During my residency I began to explore notions of "unraveling", both literally and metaphorically. I created an installation of textiles and video that incorporated the yarn I had spun from laboratory animals with unraveled threads for a new project connecting the unique experiences and traumas of the pandemic moment. I invited both artists and non artists from anywhere in the world to participate in collaborative unraveling performances over zoom. And during these sessions we unraveled textiles, while discussing the pandemic in wandering conversations that ranged from the personal to the political to the social. With our webcams trained on our hands and not on our heads, our minds were allowed to wander during the meditative active unraveling in ways that were unencumbered by the typical self-conscious anxieties triggered by video conferencing early on in the pandemic. The project is part oral history, part conceptual craft. Our performance attempts to unravel unique and shared experiences of trauma and resilience during the global health crisis. The video was displayed on top of cinder blocks found in the vast hallways of the army terminal and layered in the videos of the recorded zoom sessions, that I conducted with both friends and strangers. During my residency at BioBAT, participants would mail me their unraveled threads that resulted from our zoom sessions. And they would often include personal notes about the sense of catharsis they felt during the soothing activity of unraveling. These threads unraveled during our sessions were installed with a weaving loom and skeins of llama and alpaca fiber in the gallery. And during my residency I began weaving the unraveled threads into tapestries that incorporate the hand spun fiber of the laboratory animals. The video project also generated text artifacts including AI-transcribed excerpts that are of varying legibility due to transcription errors. Their technological annotations of time and imperfect transcription are reflective in their own way of the sense of disruption we've felt in relation to time and communication during the pandemic, a feeling that is at once alleviated and exacerbated by technologies like video conferencing...
— Laura Splan on Unraveling Together in an Artist Talk for "Material Healing:fabrics, materials, and substances changing our concept of remedy" at Leonardo LASER Arizona State University
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BioBAT Art Space
Integral Molecular
uCity Science Center

Project Support provided by The Science Center Bioart Residency, Integral Molecular

Exhibitions include BioBAT Art Space

Photo documentation of installation by On White Wall