Opening Closures
This body of work is the culmination of a practice-led research project
that bends craft and architecture history together with a study of knots.
Knotted objects and drawing are used here to consider the production,
representation, and organization of space. The work posits knotting to be a
spatial practice and craft to be practical mode of engagement with the material
and social conditions in which it is situated.
2016
Knots are
complications, instances of contradiction and the results of oppositional forces
being drawn into tension. In their object form, they embody both antagonistic and
sympathetic attitudes. Where a knot might be an obstruction, impeding the flow
of a regulated system, it might also be integral to the rigging which holds
that system together. Where a knot might be a tangle, a difficult problem or
source of pain and aggravation, it might also be a resolution, an elegant
coordination of disparate parts. When a knot is seen as a point of repair it
implies damage and a break. Although a knot might offer security by holding
things in place, it might also be a condition of bondage, enacting domination.
Opening
Closures proposes knotting to be a spatial practice predicated on a matrix of
positions and limitations. Such a proposition frames a disoriented set of
relational terms whereby under is over (under/over) and under is over over (under/over).
To conflate under and over into a coextensive condition is a violent collapse
and profound demolition. And yet, still, movement between differentiated
positions is an orderly transgression effecting while infringing upon each
location. An opening closure exceeds its termination; it is made to be undone.
It is an effect of power that delineates a boundary and establishes distance.
But in its finality it produces a space of contact, of encounter, and of
sensitive engagement with the material and social conditions in which it is
situated.