hand knitted wool, knitting needles, diptych
Heart of darkness installed at Synecdoche's Bodies residency at The Unit, The Arcade, Bristol, Sept 2017
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Heart of darkness is a large scale, two-part, abstract, red, hand knitted installation. It is unfinished, and partly unravelling. Sometimes I reattach several circular knitting needles so I could potentially carry on knitting at any point; sometimes it is left to unravel. Because of the flexible nature of the knitted wool, it’s very versatile and site responsive and can be installed in many different ways.
Heart of darkness is my response to being diagnosed and living with a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) for three years. I am a compulsive swimmer, I swim outside most days. It’s another ‘state of flow’ activity; the rhythm and immersion induce that addictive sense of wellbeing, akin to knitting. Consequently, I was devastated when my first episode happened when I was swimming. That it was the same day as my first big assessment at University I’m sure is significant.
These episodes take the form of heart palpitations – an uncomfortable sensation at the best of times – racing heart, sweats, light headedness, faintness and nausea. It was scary! I was soon diagnosed with SVT, which, fortunately, isn’t life threatening, but is debilitating. It’s unpredictable and unpleasant. I was given tablets which would sometimes stop the palpitations, but would often have to go to A&E to have them stopped with an injection. Apparently it’s some kind of electrical fault, which can be triggered by exercise, caffeine, alcohol, illness and stress. The first few triggers can be monitored but stress is obviously harder to control.
So, I decided to knit my response. As I’ve already intimated elsewhere, knitting is a major stress reliever for me. When I begin to knit, I very quickly enter that seductive state of meditative timelessness, so it seemed like the obvious response. Knitting also acts as the back drop to my life; I knit whenever I can and wherever I am. It marks the passage of time. I started knitting it soon after the first episode. It isn’t a literal representation. I knitted it for me, as a kind of therapy. It represents the rhythm of my experiences….
t’s knitted from the centre out, firstly on double pointed needles, then on a circular needle as the knitting grows, and eventually on many circular needles, which I use in the same way as one would use double pointed needles. It means it can be any size, and is thrilling! I regard it as sculpture. It has its own intrinsic form, but is also very flexible so it can be sculpted into other forms using tension and gravity. It is made up of a series of interconnected irregular holes. Somehow the idea of knitting holes appeals to me. Hanging the knitted fabric suggests fragility and the holes bring an extra dimension of vulnerability to the piece. Faultiness. The surface is also textured in places, the ubiquitous bobble becomes something other in this context!
And why red? Louise Bourgeois wrote:
‘Red is the colour of blood.
Red is the colour of paint.
Red is the colour of violence.
Red is the colour of danger.
Red is the colour of shame.
Red is the colour of jealousy.
Red is the colour of grudges.
Red is the colour of blame.’
Bourgeois, Louise, 1998, in an interview with Cecilia Blomberg, in Bernadac, Marie- Laure, 2007, Louise Bourgeois, Flammarion: London
I think, for me, red is the colour of many things – fear, anger, (‘seeing red’), anxiety, mortality…. Knitting with just one colour also means that the form becomes more significant.
And why a diptych? This begins as a practicality but it becomes conceptual the more often it happens. As I knit whenever and wherever I can, obviously when a piece reaches a certain size it’s no longer feasible for me to carry it around. I continue to knit it more privately, often at home. I will then start a new piece of work which becomes my ‘public knitting'. In this instance I didn’t consider the piece to be ‘finished’, so I began the second part of my Heart of darkness. Making two sculptures around this theme brings delightful flexibility in the ways it can be installed and also echoes the research I have done around multiple selves, particularly in the stitched Nobodies and Others series. Maybe if the SVT returns this will also become a multipart installation? The process of knitting becomes a narrative….
Heart of darkness is technically unfinished, but I haven’t continued knitting it for ten years. Fortunately, in June 2015, I had a successful oblation operation which seems to have fixed my heart, for now at least, but there’s still the possibility that it could recur. For me, the fact that it’s unfinished is significant; maybe if the SVT comes back I will take it up and start knitting it again?
It has been exhibited in a number of different shows so far, with many permutations. Sometimes I have installed both pieces together, sometimes separately; it has been suspended from meat hooks and chains, draped, hung in a shop window and worn!
1. 2016 'Privy; an exhibition of public and private stuff' at The Edwardian Cloakroom, Bristol, June 22nd - 29th, Lou Baker with Nicola Pearce and Maura Zukina
2. 2016 'Bodies: a group residency' with Synecdoche, a month-long, socially engaged, site-responsive residency at The Unit, an empty shop in St James’ Arcade, Broadmead, Bristol, September 1st - 29th
3. 2016 'Unravelling: an exhibition of knitting and crochet art', at Bow Arts’ Ice House Studios, London, October 6th - 16th
4. 2017 'Window Wanderland' at Room 212 Gallery, Bristol, February 4th - 21st
5. 2017 '[dis]place' at The Vestibules, Bristol, a month-long residency with Synecdoche, September 4th – October 2nd
6. 2017, 'PRILIC' with Impermanence Dance at Jacobs Wells Baths, Bristol, 8-16th December
Both parts of Heart of darkness (far left and far right)
exhibited as part of Multitude with 9 of my other soft sculptures
at 'PRILIC', Jacobs Wells Baths, Bristol, December 2017
One part of Heart of darkness moving spontaneously, to music, at PRILIC.
7. 2019 B-Wing at the decommissioned Shepton Mallet Prison, as part of Red is the colour of..., an installation of red knitting in and out of the cells on the first floor.
Heart of darkness 1, 2015,
installed at B-Wing as part of Red is the colour of...,
a trail of red knitting in and out of the cells on the first floor of the prison, Sept-Oct 2019
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Heart of darkness 2, 2015,
installed at B-Wing as part of Red is the colour of...,
a trail of red knitting in and out of the cells on the first floor of the prison, Sept-Oct 2019
(Click for full image)