Re-store Exhibition

Re-store is focused on the Grade 2 Listed, Wellington Hangar at Brooklands Museum prior to its planned dismantling, relocation and restoration.  In response to the structure and the contents of the hangar the exhibition explores ideas of restoration, decay, and fragility of existence.  

As part of the 6plus2 Art Collective these are my works for the exhibition (7-21 June 2014).

The work focusses on the unnoticed in terms of physicality and process. Tiny fragments of the building preserved like relics of memory; and the role of women, the amalgamation of domestic skills with industrial process highlights their often unrecognised contribution.

Hangar I

Hand made artists’ book in presentation box : iron gall ink, watercolour, vintage illustrations, rust fragment. 

From an oxidised fragment the subtle colours and textures are rendered into a tiny keepsake.

 Hangar II

Hand made artists’ book : 

rust fragments darned on linen with vintage thread, salt water crystals, digital print on aviation tissue.  

Found fragments of friable rust are encrusted with salt crystals, like the tears of those for whom the physicality of the hangar will never be the same. The delicate darning attempts to repair what time has destroyed and what can only be preserved in the memory.  Images of the hangar’s frailty are emphasised by translucent aviation paper, once used to construct the earliest flight.

8 stitches per inch

Hand made paper fragments with blind embossed inch squares, each hand sewn with linen thread, 8 stitches per inch.

Eight stitches per inch was the optimum stitch rate for the linen carapace on the Wellington Bomber.  The women who sewed were crucial, any deviation meant the canvas would tear away during flight.

“all I have left is time, 

and in the pale light I am still waiting.”

Vintage linen map fragments, thread, embroidery hoops.

Inspired by annotated aviation maps, the hoops reminiscent of propellers and planned bomb sites.  For those left behind, the stress of the unknown location and timing of bombing flights is alleviated by the repetitive action of stitching; the loose threads a tether to home.

“and when he flies at night I sit and sew and follow him in the map of my mind : every stitch drawing him back to me.” 

Vintage map fragments, thread, embroidery hoops.

installation: