ABOUT
Permutations: The Degrees of Freedom
Presented as part of Occupying Space for Craft Contemporary 2023, the installation contributes to a wider dialogue about spatiality in contemporary textile practice. The exhibition brings together artists who manipulate fibre and thread into sculptural form, exploring how material intelligence can define, hold, and reimagine space. Within this context, the work investigates how systems evolve through the act of change, and how tension can hold the potential for transformation.
The process begins with control. Following a geometric sequence, lines of silk thread are methodically stitched across the paper’s surface, establishing an ordered framework. Once complete, the paper is immersed in water, softening its fibres. The threads are then pulled by hand, distorting the structure and allowing the material to shift and settle into its own form. Each gesture becomes a permutation, a variation born from the interplay of force and release.
The resulting sculpture is both measured and fluid. Its undulating surface appears as a terrain of woven rhythm, carrying traces of time, labour, and movement. Threads trail toward the floor, marking gravity and duration, while the softened paper folds and warps into new alignments. What was once a fixed grid transforms into a living field of relation, revealing the beauty of instability.