Four ‘text blankets’ that record a range of experiences, hopes, fears and aspirations expressed by friends of The Museum of Loss and Renewal around the world during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the extraordinary period triggered by the Coronavirus, Tracy & Edwin focussed on generating a refreshed balance within their family structure, and on activating creative practices as a positive source for direction.
To mark this time they are creating four ‘text blankets’, tactile artefacts that record a range of experiences. The blankets harness hopes, fears and aspirations expressed by friends of The Museum of Loss and Renewal around the world during the Covid-19 period.
Since the mid 1990s Tracy has been making ‘text blankets’ in bespoke public studios, commissioned by art organisations, and now does so with Edwin in their collaborative practice.
Each blanket has the same underlying focus: hand-made on site, extracts of conversations (face-to-face and online) are cut as fabric letters and applied to the woollen surface, slowly revealing ideas and opinions about e.g. belonging, attachment and memory in Tokyo; how a ‘soft city’ might be understood by its inhabitants as the fluid and impressionistic spaces between architectural exteriors in Birmingham; the state of Scottish identity at the time of the opening of the Scottish Parliament.
The hand-cutting of the texts in fabric, and tacking these to the surface of each blanket is a slow, laborious, thought-provoking process. Deceleration is enriching, and produces profound moments of exchange between Tracy & Edwin, triggered by the content gifted from their far-flung friends. The combined excerpts come to represent a range of voices, creating a ‘portrait’ of the impact of Covid-19.
When the hand-work processes are complete, the blankets are expertly needle-punched by designer Ingrid Tait on her bespoke industrial machine in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Tracy & Edwin finish the needle-punched blankets by hand, and they are then often sent from contributor to contributor to use for a period of time as each pleases.
You can follow the blankets’ development here.
# 1
# 2
# 3
(in progress)
This third blanket will be machined shortly.
# 4
(in progress)
