Mother Goddess of the Three Realms.

An East London exhibition celebrating UK and Viet Nam cross-cultural design and shared heritage with rope as medium and metaphor.

The Vietnamese tradition of worshipping Mother Goddesses has been recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, and so this collaborative project — curated by Company,Place — pays homage to the female deities who manage the skies, rivers, forests and mountains. Supported by Centre 151 (an independent charity based in Hackney, UK supporting the Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia originating community) and the British Council, this exhibition ran as part of London Design Festival 2023 and Viet Nam Design Week 2023.

This article gives care to the makers shown as part of the exhibition, and the stories surrounding preservation and proliferation of ancient material knowledge.

Room view of part of the Mother Goddess of the Three Realms exhibition at Centre 151, Hackney showing objects made from natural fibres using ancient material knowledge.

The exhibition used rope as a metaphor and medium to highlight the transition from a plant to a useful object. All works shown were created with this action of processing, plying, twisting and knotting in order to create a ritualistic yet functional textile item. It was split into metaphorical realms: forest, water and heaven and that segmentation will be kept here for flow. Quotes are from the exhibition booklet.

Forest.

Across the planet, forests have provided for us since our time on earth began. From material resources to sites of religious ceremonies, they feature in all aspects of culture. The works in this space are a presentation and demonstration of the spiritual and ceremonial side of rope in both cultures, where making becomes a tool to experience the interconnection between the natural world and material culture.

I visited the garden last as there was so much indoors to view (and drawn inside by the person working there), but this space was a little retreat that I imagine felt even more spiritual when the rope-making ritual was happening. As a gardener I was also interested in the planting they had; squash hung over the pagoda, rope-like in itself the way it curls around a sculpture. A really sweet space with added character from the artefacts.

The bee skep hut didn’t house the skep when I visited, instead it was what I took to be a mini meditation chamber (shown by the first photo). Inspired to build one for our own garden I was mesmerised by the construction techniques. The bench was indoors for the visit, used for folk participating in the kumohimo braiding workshop, but will now be situated in the Centre forever. With this one too I was inspired by the construction; in our garden I had woven a chair from old climbing rope, so could we find a wooden bench to weave with a similar pattern?

The ropes were created collaboratively, but on this occasion they hung static from the pagoda; a memory of those who had been before. The pollinator ropes were also totemic, hanging straw dolls almost inviting in or keeping away spirits, though were actually there for a physical function.

Images: Bee Skep Hut by Lyson Marchessault, Jesse Beagley and Hayatsu Architects. A coppiced chestnut frame with hazel and a corrugated hemp fibre roof. The walls are wattle and daubed with London clay, hemp and sand. The bee skep is traditionally-made with straw. [Credit: Company, Place for images 2–4]

Images: 1–2. Mother Goddess Rope by WAX Atelier, Blue H’mong craftswomen and KILOMET109 made using collectively sourced materials of hemp, linen, nettle, silk and wild yam root bound together in song and dance; 3. Temple Tassel by WAX Atelier and Brian Turner Trimmings Ltd. made using a recycled British royal wedding rope reworked to be a temple decoration. [Credit: Company, Place images 2–3]

Images: Bench by Nice Projects designed and built in-house over three days from hemp rope and wood to provide visitors to Centre 151 with a welcome rest spot. [Credit: Company, Place for image 1]

Images: 1. A Study in Bamboo from Cynthia Fan is a sculpture made from local Dalston bamboo canes creating a study of space and light, shown with a Floral Gift from WAX Atelier made using naturally dyed linen flower and botanical speciments then coated in beeswax; 2–4. Pollinator Ropes from WAX Atelier and Sitopia Farm, dried plants achillea ptarmica, phacelia buckwheat and mustard were plaited together with hemp from the H’mong and hung in the garden to provide an attractive spot for pollinating insects to stop. [Credit: Company, Place for image 1 + 2]

Water.

Knowledge, like water, is both endless yet precious. The works in this space are presentations by individuals and organisations who are offering opportunities for community exchange. Via institutional or alternative methods, they have all created local ecosystems to ensure the preservation and continuous flow of vital tangible and intangible resources.

I appreciate crafts using natural fibres, specifically those from plant materials that are undervalued or perhaps not even known that they can be used functionally in this way. So it was a delight to see the showcasing of hemp, everyday garden plants as cordage, hair, and bamboo paper. The silk braids and braided batons feel more contemporary sat next to the raw plant fibres, maybe because they simply are more ‘finished’ with their dyes and smoothness. And then more offset still is The Nine Lives Shoe and People’s Pavilion that gave a vibrancy and perhaps a futurism, yet rope was still present and vital. Frankly I didn’t quite understand what the hose pipe handle situation of the teapot regarded; I think maybe it was an object that had been fixed and the maker was suggesting rope techniques could be used instead, or was it that hose pipe is rope?

It was pleasing to create my own rope (though was a little dismayed by the colour choices, until I got it home and hung it next to a Nepalese silk scarf of similar colours). The kumohimo station was simple to use and can imagine how easily you could while away hours making metres of rope, especially useful for any hoards of yarn (I think the ones we used were leftovers from Camira Fabrics).

Images: Hemp, Earth + Politics from Studio Raw Origins showing some of the uses for UK hemp fibre.

Images: Wild Cordage by Ruby Taylor of Native Hands showing a selection of working samples of cordage made from foraged plants of the Sussex woodlands and hedgerows.

Images: 1. Raw hemp strip ball from Blue H’mong craftswomen of Pa Co village; 2. Handmade paper rope from KILOMET109 using the “Giang” vine, a wild vine from the bamboo family that is processed by hand by rolling across the body, then dyed using a wild yam root; 3. Dog leash from Sanne Visser made using wasted shorn human hair [Credit: Sanne Visser Studio]; 4. People’s Pavilion 2023 by 18-year olds Bruno De Marco, Tomi Balogun and Zhané Philips named ‘Roots of Heritage’ and made using locally-sourced timber, then temporarily exhibited in the Lea Bridge Library garden (Waltham Forest) [Credit: Luke O’Donovan].

Images: 1. The Nine Lives Shoe by Jennifer Duong and Natasha Hicks was designed for the urban explorer during ‘Walking the City’, a free summer school for years 11 and 12 led by STORE Projects in partnership with the Bartlett School and Architecture and Nike; 2. Braided batons by Aimee Betts conserve age-old techniques by bringing them into contemporary furniture design; 3. Silk braids from Brian Turner Trimmings Ltd. that along with tassel lasts unfortunately signify the retirement of a business; 4. Rope In Action by hardware archive that utilises knotted ropes and ubiquitous hardware items to suspend an airy sculpture.

Images: 1–3. Kumohimo braiding workshop led by WAX Atelier with finished braid taken home; 4. Teapot by Troy Town made in a nearby space dedicated to the teaching of Eastern and Western pottery. Both invite visitors to stay a while.

Heaven.

Heavenly bodies orbiting each other perform before our eyes every day. The two film works in this space are presentations of the physicality of combining threads. Work that is so often unseen, undervalued and undertaken in domestic settings, these films offer space to highlight and celebrate this shared labour, crafts and ancient knowledge.

Unfortunately there was a huge gap between the playing of films, and no sense of when they would start — though maybe this was to invite you to simply be in the moment. The theatre setting was dramatic, and I was alone in the expansive space. However, I get restless and the first film started playing again, which meant I missed Domestic Spinner. ‘Mother Goddess of the Three Realms’ was a beautifully captivating film though, highlighting all of the processes involved in collaboratively making a rope before presenting it to Mother Goddess. I’ve been unable to find it online anywhere!

Images: 1. ‘Mother Goddess of the Three Realms’ film by Rocio Chacon and Yesenia Thibault Picazo shown in the theatre hall of Centre 151 [Credit: Company, Place]; 2. ‘Domestic Spinner’ film by Yibing Chen shown in the Centre 151 theatre [Credit: Company, Place]; 3. Theatre curtains and backdrop made using Camira Fabrics’ fire resistant hemp and wool grown in East Yorkshire [Credit: Company, Place]; 4. Still from ‘Mother Goddess of the Three Realms’ showing Blue H’mong craftswomen collaborating to create a 20-metre long braided rope as an offering to the Mother Goddess [Credit: Benjamin Reich]

Hopefully this invited you to consider the value of natural fibres, and the ritual involved in the processes from harvesting to making to using. There is a wide variety of uses for plant materials, each with individual properties that can be utilised. It takes patience and commitment to grow and harvest them, let alone process and make a functional (or artistic) object out of them. Further, this exhibition commented on the reciprocal requirement of using nature’s bounty; what we take must be given back in some respectful way.

You may also like to read stories of similar themes:

Rooted Beings at the Wellcome Collection

How can natural fibres lead to regenerative economies?

Exploring the compostability of textiles

Thank you for reading.

This was originally published on — www.stephaniesteele.co.uk — on 1st October 2023. It has been additionally shared later on Substack and LinkedIn.

Stephanie Steele is the founder of Steele Studio, a space that educates everyday folk on the interconnectedness of our food, fibre and fashion systems through community courses and workshops. As an organic food grower and textiles sustainability specialist, she otherwise writes about art, textiles, plants, running and systems design.

To support her work, you can follow or subscribe to receive her once-weekly article.

Or donate a coffee via Ko-fi.

Holding a bale of freshly harvested flax.