Supported by Velferden Sokndal Scene for Samtidskunst
Exhibited with the support of Scarborough Studios and Scarborough Arts at The Shakespeare Gallery, May 2024
“I spent my four weeks at Velferden working with raw Norwegian wool kindly donated by local farmer. Norway's native sheep breeds are inextricably interwoven with the landscape and Norwegian craft and industry but their thick, hairy coats are now considered undesirable and large proportions of the annual shear end up discarded to rotor burn. At Velferden I pondered the wool in parallel to the landscape of the mine and deponi. The deponi is a 6 million ton monument to perceived value and sacrifice; a thumbprint bruise rising from the pressure of global commerce but also a symbol of a specific, enriched and vibrant community.
In my time at Velferden I wanted to work with the wool spontaneously, absorbing the spirit and physicality of the landscape and relaying it through the labour of felting, spinning and knitting. Wool shorn from a sheep holds its form, more or less, and so a facsimile of the animal can be unfolded with all its mountainous variations of colour and texture intact. Felting preserves what the sheep grew and the artistry in nature. Spinning and knitting means processing the fibre, like titanium from dark stone, from rough and dirty into something controlled and uniform. Part of this process is separating the fluffy wool from the long guard hairs that protect the Norwegian sheep from the elements but also are also the source of their rejection for being hard to work with. Spinning with the hairs takes a different kind of time and care to wooly roving but is a reminder not to discount the waste product if you can.
Ultimately, two stories found their way into my peripheral and pulled out characters in the wool that rounded out my visit; the eyes of the mountain looking down through the studio window, and the hands clasping on the miners lodge banner in a universal symbol of friendship. The wool worked its way into shape, felted with the help of sand and gravity beating it down the side of the deponi (anecdotally, wool has to be rolled approximately 600 times to felt solidly), and found its eyes in the spectrum of colours in the fleece. The lodge banner represents the struggle of community built around dangerous toil, a unification tied up with suffering that is familiar to miners through the ages but also the trauma that comes with the loss of it. There is a hand extendending itself from the sand dunes and rock; a hand reaching for help, for salvation, in thanks or in friendship, or all these things at once, and Velferden is a place where its call can be answered.”
