Eternally Yours at Somerset House.
This free 2022 exhibition at Somerset House, London brought together furniture, textiles, paper-based art, historical artefacts, multimedia and photography to address ideas around care, healing and repair.
While visible mending has been trending in, perhaps, the last 5 years, the care given to possessions was not always so outwardly spoken. You mended to make do. You mended to prolong the lifecycle of your stuff, whether for sentimental reasons, cost, or not having anything else.
The works in this exhibition all in some way spoke to the familiarity inherent in objects and how this can persuade us to heal them (to heal us). Recently reading thoughts from a focus group in my MA thesis, I was reminded of the diversity of what material stuff speaks to us — and usually, there are textiles involved. This exhibition picked up on that with a lot of textiles on show, including a full room by the lifestyle brand Toast where curated pieces as part of their mending workshop series were shown.
Read on for some highlights of the exhibited works.
I had wanted to create categories in consideration of the reasons why we repair. Sometimes the repair is elevated from an everyday repair to an aesthetic repair for instance, further embedding the human into the object; the self awareness, the need to beautify. This can also be a sentimental repair however, as we’re eager to bring the full value of an object back to life. And then activist repair is for outward explicit protest, while an everyday repair is in fact a {silent} act of activism. Similarly, a functional repair is acting against the original design to create open-source knowledge so is activism too, yet affects daily life. And then maybe it’s also sentimental because it’s an old handed-down object? So we may as well design it aesthetically-well too.
Everyday repair — something functional but quick.
Aesthetic repair — elevating the everyday repair into something with more thought.
Sentimental repair — eagerness to bring the object back to life, this repair is likely functional and made with care, but not necessarily beautified as the object speaks for itself.
Activist repair — a somewhat silent act of repair that protests capitalism, intending to highlight the object as something worth saving.
Functional repair — likely an everyday repair, yet perhaps done in a way that elevates the original design, and possibly shared in an open-source manner so other people can try it out.
So I decided to remove the category types and simply highlight the artefacts.
Ranru (boroboro textile), late 1800-early 1900, Japan.
The Japanese characters for ‘ranru’ derived from ‘boroboro’, describe something as tattered, shabby or repaired. For Japanese farmers of the Edo period (1603–1867) it was necessary to get the maximum use out of their textiles so no scrap was ever thrown away. Garments were mended or additional layers were stitched on in order to create practical clothing, but as scraps and clothes were handed down, and subsequently dyed with indigo or brown tones according to the area (and to refresh the textiles), they would signify a family or heritage. The distinctive stitching — known as Sashiko — became aesthetic, with these techniques used for both function and decoration.
Gourd food bowl, 1979, South Sudan.
It’s unclear if this bowl was purchased at market in 1979 already repaired, or that the buyer had repaired it themselves. But it’s a bowl made from a gourd shell (type of squash with particularly decorative and thick skins). I’d recently just listened to a podcast about gourd banjo makers, so to see another gourd artefact was cool — I love the ingenious use of materials around. This one has a cracked rim and was mended with either fibre or sinew it is stated, yet additionally decorated with glass beads to elevate the repair.
Ivory armlet, 1903, Sudan.
In view with the gourd bowl below is an ivory armlet (presumably varnished?) that has multiple repairs using metal (in what we would now describe as in a kintsugi fashion). The piece was on show to highlight the decision-making process of conservators when determining if an object should be repaired or not, and additionally what to transcribe from already-repaired objects — are they of particular relevance and should be saved, or was it an everyday repair that happens to look interesting? Either way it is a socio-anthropological insight. Why do museums treasure such perfect items? The Secrets of the Museum programme about the V&A conservation team was a good insight into a conservator’s approach.
Walrus ivory knife, 1825, Canada.
This knife simply looks cool. Unsure how it’s fully practical with all the small pieces stitched together, but it is described as a ‘snow knife’ so perhaps it’s more like an ice axe? The repairing using leftover materials sings to me, along with the stitching appearance itself; using bits of bone and animal sinew, the knife has so many stories imbued within in. And though the writing shown on the knife must have come from the museum, it feels from a distance as added poetry.
Richard Wentworth, Making Do and Getting By, c1977-, digital prints.
Undertaken by way of habit, these photographs capture everyday repair in action — and the ingenious nature of them. The information plaque suggested that the photos show how we give agency to the objects around us by interacting with them; the photos captured show
- an essentially packaged up bumper with brown paper and string
- a stool in the middle of a pair of van seats
- set of bricks for a kerb step down
- safety pin used to keep a kettle lid on
- piece of bandage wrapped around metal pipes. To me, everyday repair highlights our awareness of materials and their both functional and aesthetic properties.
Ellen Sampson, Cloth, 2015.
I was most drawn to this piece because of the pattern cutting, because it looks so fantastical that this creates a shoes. Under the impression that a ballet dancer’s shoe had been taken apart due to the colour and type of materials, further research suggests it is in fact a shoe made by the artist as part of their pHd — though potentially still worn through performances. I appreciated the dissemination of the creases, folds, marks, stains, bleeds of a dancer’s shoe as an artefact of time. Repair isn’t acted out here, but opening up something to be addressed for their use is what we would do when repairing anyway.
Celia Pym, Norwegian Sweater, 2009.
I attended a mending workshop led by Celia back when I managed fabric shop Ray Stitch, must’ve been 2015-ish. She carted her pieces around in plastic carrier bags, and though there was care there with how they were handled, they were still utilised as functional garments. Which is what they are, now they have been repaired. So it’s strange seeing this jumper in various exhibits behind glass.
All you want to do when textiles are on show are to hold them — can we truly understand if we don’t feel? I’d actually just bumped into Celia on the bus on my journey to this exhibition. What always strikes me with this jumper is that the mending is almost half of the jumper, and so the vision Celia had to piece it back together is astonishing. It’s no surprise that she came from healthcare.
Aya Haidar, Orphaned, Overboard, and Baggage from the Soleless series, 2022.
Haidar’s artistic practice utilises found and repurposed objects to explore themes of loss, migration and memory. There was a trigger warning information plaque for the pieces on show; the embroidery tells the tales of migrants during and after their journey, with their worn-out shoes used as the canvas. The quote below is a memorial account accompanying the image.
“Iman made it from Syria to Turkey overland with her 3-month-old baby boy, and used all the money she had to pay for her crossing by sea in an over-crowded rubber dinghy from Turkey to Greece. It was dark and freezing cold and the baby was not settling. He was crying, out of cold and hunger, and she desperately tried to shush him. The seas were heavily patrolled by coastguards and the traffickers were shouting at her to keep the baby quiet. Her baby didn’t settle so the trafficker ripped him out of her arms and threw him overboard. For them, the baby was risking their whole operation and had to serve as collateral. It didn’t take long for the baby to quieten as he floated away.”
Beasley Brother’s repair shop.
As touched upon in my opening statement, repair has become an act of holding on to the past, and yet in a time when we’re aware of the waste we’re generating, and the cost of products are increasing while quality is reducing, then repair is now absolutely necessary too.
Proprietary knowledge and planned obsolescence from certain brands are preventing us from easily disassembling and fixing so that we must instead stay in a loop of purchasing. Asserting intelligent creativity is a form of activism that gets one up on brands who persist in profiteering over choosing real sustainable consumption. It is also showing the everyday citizen of how we can fix stuff ourselves with just a little bit of insight — or help from a creative and technical team.
This exhibit was also an acting repair shop, with drop-in sessions for folk to bring whatever they wanted creatively repaired. The crutch standing lamp (in photo below) is particularly fun; I left my crutches in a house I moved out of as I figured someone may be able to use them sometime. I have a habit of carting around materials in case one day they’re useful, but rarely put the idea into practice — having a workshop space, electrical knowledge and carpentry skills I’m sure would allow more of us to repair and fix our stuff more often. The other outstanding object is the jumper chair — so simple, make it comfy by inserting something already comfy.
In the background of the first image is a wall of meltable bioplastic-repaired goods. FORMcard is a Sugru-type material but one that is dropped in hot water to make it pliable, and then moulded before being air-cooled into a solid form. It seems that it is stronger than Sugru so having more durable applications.
Jazz Photo Corporation.
Jazz Photo Corporation would doctor disposable cameras to be useable again, specifically by taking used Fuji cameras and replacing the film and outer casing for resale. Of course they were sued over Intellectual Property. But this act goes to highlight how one-time is never really one-time only. [This photo was part of a range of “favourite repairs”, though I didn’t take notes of the rationale. This one in the photo was the one that stood out to me].
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Electronics (RSPCE), 2022.
A tongue-in-cheek video in the style of the animal charity RSPCA’s marketing, showing a call being made by a citizen to the RSPCE to collect an abandoned Henry Hoover for repair. It highlights nicely how we value certain things more than others, and that perhaps the life in an object is as worthy as the life of a living being (why the hierarchy? Living stuff is still involved somewhere in the process).
JJ Shim, Reconceptual Modular System.
Modularity allows users to easily see how something fits together, and protects our consumer rights to repair. Brands and manufacturers are protective of their designs, despite the fact that in some respect they can be counterfeited anyway, so by opening up their designs they can better engage with their customers while collecting useful data. JJ Shim’s concept asks that:
- Component functionality is clear from the design
- Components are arranged according to user experience (i.e. the timeline of how they would approach the object), and
- Instant access to the brand’s clear repair instructions. This video shows how a coffee machine could be designed better.
Oscar Parkinson, Kitchen Counters.
These small analogue devices fitted to appliances such as toasters and kettles give tangibility to our consumption. It provides a dialogue with our objects, and as Parkinson suggests, our modern obsession with data can help us develop an appreciation for how much our appliances do for us.
TOAST renewal workshop.
Throughout the exhibition, clothing/lifestyle brand TOAST — champions of extending the life of their own designed garments and encouraging their community to do the same with other clothes — held drop-in renewal consultations, along with workshops from artists/makers on their roster. These images show some mended items from Emily Mae Martin (not to be confused with Molly Martin who lead the workshops), along with textile artworks that really got me excited.
Emily Mae Martin.
Emily’s repairs are intricate, so much so that the image of the plaid repair I audibly said WHAT at. It just looks like a weave, and it’s a pattern on a plain. Sign of an outstanding repair. I couldn’t figure out if a mini loom was used to create the weave and this was then stitched into place, or it was indeed darned in situ, which is even more mega because the tension is superb.
The other repairs are just as neat, with an 8-hour embroidery on white cotton tunic to cover pen marks, and a sashiko mend of cargo pants.
Ekta Kaul, Threads of Connection, 2022.
Ekta Kaul is a textile artist who stitches narrative maps using a kantha technique and studio offcuts (plus TOAST scraps for this Threads of Connection commissioned work. This piece specifically narrates the suspected Kolkata journey of the artist’s grandmother. I love the straightfoward markmaking, and that the background cloth of various textures and hues add to the topography.
Tom Collinson, Oddment Chair, 2022.
Tom Collinson collects discarded wood from lumber yards that are too rounded or burled for other purposes, and uses stuffed textiles (in this case remnants of TOAST garments) to build a strong structure to emphasise the materials’ regarded imperfections.
Isabel Fletcher, Fragmented and Joined: Fabric and Thread, 2022.
Using a damaged TOAST dress as a base, Isabel Fletcher draped other offcuts to piece together a new item. She essentially does what I attempt to do; exposing construction details in the form of raw edges and open seams, and highlight “flaws” of faulty stitches by exploring thread tension. The colours, ruffles and stitch details marry together so nicely.
Amy Goacher, Regenerate, 2022.
In this piece, Amy Goacher revitalised a selection of archival fisherman sweaters using handcrafted techniques (hand-knitting, crochet, swiss darning and traditional embroidery) to uplift them. I love that it’s like the jumper is pouring out of itself.
As always, textiles in exhibitions get me riled up. I am a champion of using existing materials in a repurposed manner so it’s wonderful when this is elevated. I start to wonder if I can pick this practice back up, and have the process and finished item mean more than just a product, so that I’m not disheartened by making more “stuff”. I dislike how you can never touch textile pieces in exhibitions though.
To keep updated with exhibition reviews, textile art highlights, news from the fibre and materials sphere — all of which to inspire and engage and educate — then please do follow me. You can read an archive of other exhibition reviews including Magdalena Abakanowicz at the Tate Modern and Rooted Beings at the Wellcome Collection.
Originally published at https://www.stephaniesteele.co.uk on October 5, 2022.
