Origin Interactive:Crafting Space (Alinah Azadeh/Willow Winston/Crafts Council)

About

A live textile installation by Alinah Azadeh. Textile structure in collaboration with sculptor Willow Winston. Origin Interactive: Crafting Space is the first ever interactive commission by the Crafts Council for Origin: the London Craft Fair. The project invites visitors to Origin to engage in the hands-on writing and weaving of a large-scale circular structure. The intention is to transform visitor's perceptions of what it means to be engaged in craft. The project is inspired by ideas around making, gift and exchange and the Middle Eastern practice of Moshaereh (communal poetry reciting). Visitors may choose from three themes which will ask them to consider the meaning and value of making, giving, receiving and collecting in a new and intriguing context. They will then write or draw their responses onto ribbon. The weaving of one of the 5,000 sheer ribbons required to cover the circular steel mesh structure will give individual visitors the opportunity to transform the bare bones of an existing piece of craft into a stunning object of collective creativity. The aim of the piece is to articulate a process of reflection and dialogue which visitors are drawn into, thus deepening their experience of the Fair. It will provide a lively, daily critical context to the wider event. The project is produced in association with the Crafts Council and is also supported by The Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles (Goldsmiths University). Crafting Space is being documented via the artist's blog: http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/440660 www.alinahazadeh.com www.craftscouncil.org.uk/origin