Woven Hug & Linen Biennale
How Woven Hug 2.0 was Embraced by the Linen Biennale
written by Tere Chad
Woven Hug installed at Flowerfield Arts Centre, summer 2023. Image Kavod Films
It was late January, wet and cold and I had recently arrived at Belfast. I was at the bed and breakfast reviewing the lecture and workshop I had to give next day to the Spanish students at the Modern Languages department at Queen’s University. I had been invited by Professor Fiona Clark to give a lecture about my artistic practice and particularly speak about two projects: Woven Hug and the ReEnlightenment. On both of these projects I gathered communities through upcycling to create a participatory installation. Woven Hug 1.0, co-facilitated with the Mexican academic Cordelia Rizzo, was initially created at LABNL, the cultural lab of Monterrey, Mexico (2022). This project was a large-scale textile hug, made using the traditional South American stitching technique of the ‘arpillera’, as a method to invite the local community to come together after the pandemic through upcycling and embroidery.
Cordelia and I had been invited by Flowerfield Arts Centre and Conflict Textiles to recreate Woven Hug 2.0 in summer 2023. As I still had a couple of hours free before my next appointment, I decided to start making phone calls to local arts institutions to see if I could find other practitioners working with textiles interested in collaborating. After various unsuccessful phone calls and emails, I finally got to the right person at Arts & Business Northern Ireland. After briefly introducing the project, this person suggested I visit R-Space Gallery.
Tere, Cordilla, Mario and project participants in Flowerfield Arts Centre. Image Kavod Films
I decided to head off to Lisburn before my next appointment at Limavady. It was again pouring with rain, I had no idea of where I was heading nor what to expect, but I was curious to get to know the space and had a feeling I might meet the right people in there. I arrived at R-Space Gallery and I was luckily received by Robert Martin, co-director of the space and the Linen Biennale. He was very generous with his time, as he made space to listen about Woven Hug. We had a long conversation, and he gave me lots of references and recommendations for my Arts Council England grant application and even gave me a report on the first Linen Biennale. Robert mentioned, that even though the main material of Woven Hug was hessian rather than Linen, he was interested in finding ways we could connect the project to the Biennale as the project is based on bringing collective action through recycling and fostering sustainability. I left the place with a smile from ear to ear as I couldn’t believe my luck and hadn’t totally realised at that point that a casual meeting, where I met the right person at the right moment, would open doors for a long-lasting collaboration. Then I visited the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum to learn more about the Linen heritage of the region.
After months of conversations, we found ways to highlight the Northern Ireland’s linen heritage through Woven Hug 2.0 and bringing the topic into the conversations during the 3 weeks of residency where we facilitated workshops at Flowerfield Arts Centre. R-Space Gallery also served as a donation point for recycled fabrics that would later create Woven Hug 2.0. Professor Alison Gault from Ulster University joined us for our panel discussion sharing her research about how linen can offer more sustainable solutions for the fashion industry, the third more pollutant industry in the world. We also had the opportunity of co-facilitating an embroidery workshop with artist Emma Whitehead at R-Space Gallery.
The openness and generosity of the Linen Biennale’s team definitely impacted the success of Woven Hug 2.0 and has also demonstrated that sustainable action is best fostered when there is the will of a community pushing collaborative work and partnerships.
The surplus materials have been left at Flowerfield Arts Centre, allowing Northern Ireland’s textile artists to keep on gathering in the space. The beautiful part of participatory projects, is that the strength of them does not rely on the materiality of the piece but in it’s immaterial and threads weaved between the different volunteers during the process. Woven Hug 2.0 is not just a mere ‘textile hug,’ it’s an artwork that has left immaterial bonds with Northern Ireland’s community and therefore I hope this will not be the first nor the last time I’ll be collaborating with such a generous, giving and enthusiastic community.
Tere with Robert Martin and Anthea McWilliams (R-Space Gallery & Linen Biennale directors and co-founders) at the launch of Woven Hug, July 2023.
Written by María Teresa Chadwick Irarrázaval MRSS.
More info: www.terechad.com @terechad
