I installed my new red knitted sculptures, Red is the colour of....2 with several other red knitted works, site responsively in the old kitchen and store room of a former cafe in Taunton's Orchard Shopping Centre. It was the pilot for Social Scaffolding and was part of Somerset Art Weeks 2022, 24th Sept. - 9th Oct.
Images 01 & 03-10 Jon England
The works included were:
Red is the colour of....2, 2022, 40+ new knitted sculptures
Heart of darkness, 2015, diptych
All the babies I might have had 1, 2012, felted knitting
plus several other, as yet unnamed, knitted sculptures....
The Red room had lots of fabulous feedback from visitors:
‘That’s amazing!’
‘It’s like Stranger Things.’
‘This makes me uncomfortable…in a good way!’
‘It looks like a ‘murder of knitting.’
‘You can see the red leaking out of it.’
‘It’s like a horror movie, visiting the house of your childhood.’ 8-year-old boy
‘The one over the sink is like a nest.’
‘It’s cool.’
‘All artists have a weird head.’
‘That’s an overuse of the colour red. It’s such an aggressive colour.’ (Older gentleman)
‘Scary… and awesome.’
Of the kitchen setting- ‘I worked in catering and recognise the feelings.’
‘That’s how a kitchen should be. Brilliant!’
‘Intense.’
‘Like in Stranger Things, the Upside down.’
‘That room’s really nice, powerful. Your work makes me think of Judith Scott’s wrapped works and Phyllida Barlow’s assemblages.’
‘It reminds me of the red thread that connects all women.’
‘At first, I thought of blood, danger, hearts, then thought it looks like germs. The knitting coming out of the tap made me think, ‘is the water clean?’ (8 year old boy)
‘Unfinished. Covid isn’t finished.’
‘It looks like a murder scene. Body parts exploded everywhere! Really cool, I love it.’
‘Incredible expression and uses of wool.’
‘It’s cool, not scary.’
‘Red light district?’
‘Red is unctuous, powerful.’
‘It looks as if someone’s opened the door and thrown in a hand grenade!’
‘It makes me think of the Whitechapel murders in the sewers. Bodies were found eviscerated with the intestines removed. This looks as if they’ve thrown in the intestines!’
‘Like a placenta.’
‘I found that red room really disturbing.’
‘Clotting blood?’
‘The room seemed darker and colder. It made me feel afraid.’
‘It made me think of Saw, the movie. A room to fight your own fear?’
‘Quite foreboding, like a cave. Knitting is normally sweet…’
‘It’s like stretched chewing gum.’
‘Like Edgar Allan Poe’s short horror stories.’
‘Have you seen MegaMart on YouTube?’
‘It’s fallen out of something.’
‘Like a murder.’
‘Chaotic.’
‘Like the inside of something else.’
‘It makes me think of Jane Eyre. Was she put in the red room when she was a child?’
‘It’s like Where the Wild Things Are.’
‘Rage becomes other emotions -sorrow, grief, fear, guilt.’ (12-year-old girl)
‘Sloppy is more human.’
‘It reminded me of a hospital, with the dripping blood’
‘That’s proper visceral. Like a womb.’
‘You don’t see something like that every day!’
‘Have you seen the red room in Taunton Museum?’
‘It’s horrible. It feels haunted.’
‘It’s like some kind of internal organ that’s been ravaged.’
‘It’s like walking into the body.’
‘Something living, bloody, pulsating.’
‘Bloodbath.’
‘Slaughterhouse. Carcasses hanging.’
‘Interesting and so different.’
‘Injury.’
‘Gorefest.’