Circular knitting
Woodcarving
We find ourselves at a tipping point between a continued shift towards the Technocene, in which control and human organisation continue to dominate the landscape, or a shift towards the Ecocene, in which humanity learns to understand itself anew as part of an animate ecological system. Inspired by ecological succession, the tapestry evolves from pioneers into a layered ecosystem in which the boundaries between humans, insects and animals begin to blur. It seeks a new society.
Inspired by my voluntary work in the local food forest and my stay at an off-grid WOOFF site in Scotland, I have become aware of the loss of identity that occurs when we cut ourselves off from the ecosystem. We now face the choice of delving even deeper into the Technocene than we already do, or taking a courageous new turn towards the (un)known. With this tapestry, I wish to make a hopeful gesture towards a new beginning.
Long before the first humans arrived, the earth was still able to set its own rhythms. Life and death did not move as end and beginning, but as something that constantly merged into one another. In landscapes where everything is organised, controlled and maintained, the space for what arises naturally disappears. Pieces of land that need not be anything rarely get the time to dance to their own fertile rhythm. In that human-capitalised interim, species disappear, the soil becomes impoverished and our relationship with the landscape is lost. The tapestry depicts a new beginning. A shift towards a world in which humans no longer reign supreme, but become part of an animate ecological system. A system that is vaster than we—whether humans, insects or deer—can currently comprehend, and in which the boundaries between humans, insects and animals are beginning to blur. The tapestry grows in an upward movement, inspired by ecological succession. What begins with disturbance and pioneers develops into a layered ecosystem. Within those layers dwell new forms of coexistence, in which humans and animals merge into one another. Through alienation and a slightly utopian worldview, the tapestry seeks a different middle ground for all creatures.