STOPPING THE TIME AT GOOGLE
Emelie Röndahl is a weaving artist based in Gothenburg, Sweden. She works specifically with the weaving technique rya, also known as the Ghiordes knot or the Turkish knot. Her project, Google Weaving Stop-time, exhibited as a part of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial — A School of Schools, connects weavers around the Mediterranean area and encourages them to learn from each other through a shared woven assignment led through the internet and transformed into hand-labour. We talked to Emelie about her project, her relation to craft and the challenges of managing an online community.
Tuğçe Karataş: What is your relationship with design and craft? How do you relate them with one another?
Emelie Röndahl: I am educated in crafts, textile art in specific. Personally I am not so concerned with the art/craft/design division since my focus and development has always come from a textile perspective. Before starting my studies at HDK (Academy for Design and Crafts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden), I took courses on traditional weaving in Sweden. In the last five years or so, I have only been weaving rya tapestries, and with that, I find myself closer to the rich history of tapestry making (from a Central European perspective), as well as traditional weaving in Scandinavia. Others would most likely place me in the craft field –and for me, that is totally fine. I think of craft as both a discipline and an activity, meaning that the time and skill I invest is as important as the result.
The principles that define the differences and relations between design, craft and art are subject to historical changes and vary regionally and culturally. Today it seems like what many are longing for, both to have themselves and to experience, is time. This longing for the privilege of having time to make whatever we want to do. And time is visualized in weaving, it is very easy to feel drawn to it by its familiarity, everybody has personal memories connected to textiles.
T.K.: How does your project as a part of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial relate to this year’s theme, A School of Schools?
E.R.: First of all, we worked in the format of an online “rya” weaving school, where all common processes were shared on social media, mostly on our shared Facebook group page. This platform functioned as space for knowledge to share this specific weaving technique, but I think, based on the great response I got from my ‘call for weavers’, that this type of community work is something that weavers really long for and not get so many chances to take part in. I mean, I spend most of the time alone with the loom, and then, when the tapestry is finished, I might get a chance to show it in an exhibition, where I can meet other people. Here we met on an earlier stage and we shared our processes with images from the loom and commented on, asked questions about each other’s strategies and developments.
All participants have different backgrounds as well. Having different levels of weaving knowledge from self-taught beginner to weavers with many years of experience in a group is important. Some have other jobs and only do weaving on their free time, others are academics or professional artists or designers. We have been focusing on the process the whole time, but with the common goal of the finished outcomes.
T.K.: The 4th Istanbul Design Biennial has a process-oriented approach. How has your project emerged from this perspective? How does it evolve?
E.R.: It started out from my own artistic method and a pretty basic idea about how it could be shared in a group –which I didn’t try before. I designed the outlines of the project, including defining a common goal and how it should be shared on the way. I also managed the Facebook group initially. With time, as the project took speed, participants started to have their own conversations, shared and helped each other without me. I knew from the beginning that it was important for the motivation to have a final goal in the shape of an exhibition, like a reward, to come together at the biennial.
T:K.: How will your project continue after the biennial ends? What will be the legacy of it?
E.R.: During Fall 2018, I will take part in an artist residency in Belgrade, Serbia. There, I hope to meet and work together with two of the weavers in the project, one from Serbia and one from Macedonia. I will also bring a kind of “after-talk” about making the project to Malmö, Sweden, realising an exhibition and workshop there.
T.K.: Can you briefly explain your thoughts on design education in its current state?
E.R: I think we should not be afraid of specialization. If we can revisit some basic assumptions on what skill and craftsmanship is, this knowledge can be used in other areas of society as well. I am not at all saying that design and craft aren’t needed on its own, but we can learn to see craft making as a model in order to go further in our theorizing on craft and with that, contribute to other fields in society. The connection between computer coding and weaving is a very successful example.
I am thinking about the power structures within the disciplines and positions towards other types of knowledge. Tacit knowledge needs its own recognition in craft making in academia, to be counted for without the need of placing heavy theory on it. There is a question I love from a Swedish book on philosophy: “What happens if a practice doesn’t sit around and wait to be rescued from the theory?” The pairing of hand-labour and theory is the challenge. We need to critically think about what hands do, and can do in the future.
•Originally published at http://aschoolofschools.iksv.org.
