Safety net at seam collective's A Visible THREAD exhibition, Wirth Gallery, Sherborne Girls' School, Sherborne, Dorset 6 -27 January 2024, extended to 31 January.
seam collective's A Visible THREAD was an Arts Council-funded, 4-venue exhibition tour in the South West of England. The official tour began in May 2023 and will finish at the end of August 2024. This exhibition at the gorgeous Wirth Gallery was a bonus A Visible THREAD exhibition! We were invited to exhibit at Sherborne Girls' School in Sherborne, Dorset, and just a few of the seam members took part. It's been wonderful to be part of the whole tour!
I was very pleased that there was space to set up one of my participatory netting dens. I called it Safety net and was delighted to see how it was transformed over the course of the 25 days. of the exhibition. Many thanks to everyone who took part.
Day 1:
Day 25:
Here's a short video of the installation on Day 25, courtesy of Lydia Needle:
I wasn't able to be present in the gallery after set up, unfortunately, so I'm especially grateful to Lillie Ayres, the curator and artist in residence at Sherborne Girls' School, for documenting groups of students and other visitors as they responded to the installation. I was especially delighted with the drawing of the net! Thanks to my sister, Jo Cant, and to seam member, Lydia Needle, as well for the other images. I'm pleased that visitors were able to respond to the installation without me there. I love the fact that what visitors have added before encourages others to participate.
My original netting den, in 2017, was also called Safety net. It was the precursor to my recent series of Social knitwork participatory installations on the Social Scaffolding tour in 2023. There the recycled strips of cloth were flesh coloured. I also knitted many flesh coIoured sculptures which were added by particpants. In the context of the school, for A Visible THREAD, I decided to use bright coloured strips of cloth again. The difference in aesthetics interests me greatly.
This was the text that accompanied the installation. I provided brightly coloured strips of recycled cloth, labels, pens and clipboards.
Safety net
an invitation to participate:
Please touch.
Go into the space.
Sit, stay a while.
What makes you feel
safe or unsafe?
Comfortable or uncomfortable?
What is your safety net?
Write your thoughts on a label.
Tie it to the netting.
Weave, plait or tie some cloth onto the structure.
Post photos on social media.
It’s hard not to become desensitised to the images we see constantly on TV and social media of displaced people living in temporary shelters as they flee war, persecution and famine. What would it feel like to have to leave everything, in fear and desperation, to find shelter in a makeshift tent, where the only protection from the elements is a thin sheet of cloth and there is no privacy?
Safety net is a site-responsive, temporary shelter. It’s an interactive and participatory experience. Constructed as a walk-in space made with garden netting, visitors can choose to go in or stay outside. They will be invited to interact with the structure by weaving, plaiting or tying strips of cloth onto the net. They’re also invited to think about what makes them feel safe or unsafe, write their thoughts on a label and tie it to the netting as well. The labels will become a form of virtual conversation, as participants read and respond to the messages of previous visitors.
Most of us made dens when we were young, with blankets and washing racks and our imagination, that gap under the hedge at the bottom of the garden or the space under the bed. It was fun, it was play. Often it was about hiding, being unseen, invisible to the eyes of supervising adults; sometimes it was about having a space of our own. Sometimes, however, there was also a frisson of fear at the prospect of being unseen or forgotten…. What happens when a temporary structure becomes the only place of safety?
Initially, this net structure provides no privacy, no shelter, it’s just a minimal, see-through barrier to the inside. As time passes and the work develops, the accumulation of responses will obscure the inside of the space and make it a much more satisfactory hiding place or shelter; or will it? As it changes, how will that change the reaction of the viewer? As passive viewer becomes active participant, how will their interactions with the den change the space for others? Inhabiting it, being still there, sharing the space, the installation will be activated by their presence. For each person it will be a different experience and the space will be transformed over time.
A seemingly superficial participatory intervention becomes a provocation, stimulating thought and conversation about comfort and discomfort. Where some feel safe, others will feel claustrophobic; where some feel calm, others will feel uncomfortable. It will also give a glimpse into the experiences of the many people who are forced to live in a world of transient shelters and the vulnerabilities and insecurities of an ephemeral resting place.
Is it a trap or a safety net?
Thank you for being part of #safetynet @loubakerartist