Gisèle 1, Gertrude 1, Séraphine 1
Gisèle 1, Gertrude 1, Séraphine 1
Lada Neoberdina
2022
Merinos wool in two colours
Jersey machine
90 x 400 cm
Installation
La Cambre
School of Visual Arts
Brussels, Belgium
This project is part of a research, started several years ago and which has for central point - a pattern. Indeed, I am interested in its origin, its transformations and uses, its graphic, symbolic and technical variations. In this project, I explore the strong relationship between architecture and textile through a pattern. (The tent or the flexible wall still recall our nomadic origins, for exemple). The relationship to the body, to its marking, is present in the same way as the work of memory - of the place, the gesture, the name.
The jersey knit was chosen for its flexibility, its fragility and its unconventional behaviour, even for a textile piece. Its transparency, its "flaccid" side, its non-imposition in space can question its status as a work. The thinness of the material and its rolling up on itself, the choice of wool colors and the hanging system, evoke a certain corporality (epidermis, skinned...). However, the pieces remain quite free of interpretation.
The motif present on each piece - a composition in white bricks, is borrowed from the façade of a house in Uccle (a commune in the Brussels region). The motif does not have a symbolic meaning of its own, but acquires a geographical, local symbolism, that of the place and the material that constitutes it at the origin. The motive is also in symbiosis with the new support which receives it: it marries its flexibility, its rolling, its length.
The titles of the pieces are borrowed from the history of the Abbaye de la Cambre in Brussels, which was founded and run by women. Indeed, Gisèle was the founder, Gertrude - the first abbess and Seraphine Snoy - the last. Thus, the textile pieces refer to their birthplace - the textile workshop of ENSAV La Cambre.
The current series will consist of 41 pieces with the brick patterns found in different cities : Brussels, Paris, Nice, Roubaix, Lille.
