Ravel A Proposal for a Performative Walk

Art in Odd Places, 14th Street, New York City

‘Ravel’ is a performative walk in which a small textile, woven in another city, on another continent, will be unravelled and re-woven in New York City. As it is re-made, the textile will absorb encounters and found materials from this new place.

The project explores how the identities that we project are made across space and time. It is also a homage to my grandfather’s emigration journey exactly 100 years ago. A Hebridean Harris Tweed weaver, he travelled to North America for work. As an immigrant, he took on the identity and clothing of a labourer but, as he did so, he temporarily lost his native Scots Gaelic language and his link to weaving culture.

I plan to make a slow, performative walk along a section of 14th Street, New York. During my walk, I will repeatedly unravel and then re-make a small, portable hand-woven weaving.  The initial weaving will be made in Edinburgh, Scotland, where I currently live and work using yarns, fibres from my studio and my urban environment. This weaving will be carried on a small, light, collapsible wooden weaving frame during my journey from Edinburgh to New York.

The grid system of streets in New York City resemble the warp and weft of a weaving. During my walk, I will carry my weaving frame on my back, weaving backwards and forwards along the section of the street that I am occupying, weaving and unravelling my footsteps.

I will stop where the ‘weft’ of 14th Street meets the ‘warps’ of the streets that intersect with it to unravel, and then later weave, passages of the weaving, sitting on a small portable camping stool which I will carry with me. I plan to make my performative walk on each day of the three-day event, moving eastward and occupying different sections of 14th Street each day.