The Further the Distance, the Tighter the Knot

 
 

The Further the Distance, the Tighter the Knot
Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts—Melbourne, Australia
October 31 - November 8, 2009

with Craig Woodward on fiddle, banjo and mandolin

The Further the Distance, the Tighter the Knot was a performance installation reflecting on absence and memory. Drawing on the site’s history as a Victorian family home, I filled the galleries with hand-knit memento mori inspired by domestic handcrafts 19th-century women made to memorialize loved ones (such as jewelry made from human hair) while sequestered at home during long periods of mourning.

Dressed in a Victorian-inspired costume that I designed and hand knit and singing folk ballads about longing and loss, I knit and unraveled installation elements as polite Victorian customs gave way to more cathartic expressions of loss. Inviting the audience to slow down and feel the passage of time in their bodies, I unraveled a 12 x 4 foot textile in its entirety to suggest impermanence and the fragile nature of memory.

 
 

Performance and installation photos Christian Capurro
Video by Annie Scott Wilson

 
 
 
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