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Katarzyna Perlak, Bated Breaths, 2020 – ongoing. Installation view at g39. Survey II is led by Jerwood Arts in collaboration with g39 and Site Gallery. Photo: Polly Thomas.
Workshop
Tender Crafts: Workshop
9 Oct 2021
Regular hours
- Sat, 09 Oct
- 11:00 – 13:00
Address
- 171 Union Street
- Southwark
- London
England - SE1 0LN
- United Kingdom
An artist-led workshop by Katarzyna Perlak, inviting participants to embroider a handkerchief with their own personally significant motif or message, to archive personal histories, collective memory and cultural etiquette.
About
This event responds to Perlak’s commission for current exhibition Survey II, Bated Breaths, an installation of embroidered handkerchiefs that each present a different proverb or saying relating to Britain and Poland. Often seen as an article for containing bodily fluids and emotion, the handkerchief also holds many symbolic meanings relating to both personal and communal references. It has been used throughout history as a method of non-verbal communication including as a token of love, as a prop in traditional folk dances and as a decorative accessory. In the 1970s the ‘Handkerchief Code’ – also known as the Hanky Code or Bandana Code – emerged in gay and bisexual communities in the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe, enabling individuals to show their sexual preferences by wearing handkerchiefs of different colours.
Jerwood Arts presents this event as part of the Tender Crafts programme for London Craft Week, drawing on Perlak’s, ‘Tender Crafts’ methodology. These events explores the ways in which crafts can be used to revisit and reimagine history from contemporary diasporic, feminist and queer perspectives, and act as a tool for archiving past and present historic moments, intimacy, connection and care. Learn more about the Tender Crafts panel discussion on Saturday 9 October, 2:30-3:30pm at Jerwood Space, here.
