Trading Places/CR.E.A.T.E. Programme

Third Phase Residencies

Back to residencies

Sooey NS; Sooey, Co. Sligo; Anna Reitberger

copy color thread weavings

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

things are coming together, instead of projections I'd like to try and trace the history of the threads in sound.
still experimenting with projecting onto piles of threads and reels.

thread projections

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

started doing drawings in the copy webs of the objects the children became in their stories about the flaxseeds, and playing around with projecting images onto the weavings and threads.

copywebs

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

more webs in copies. layering

thread drawing

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

more experiments with thread drawings and light.

cutting threads

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

images on heaps of threads.

cutting

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

experiments with projecting images from the dyeing process onto threads.(see next image)

copyweb

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

In search of ways to weave the drawings and threads together I tried weaving in copies with varies grits.

portrait

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

at the same time I was looking at photographs of the kids, drawing some portraits and trying to find ways how I could draw with the threads.

thread in the wind

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

the drying threads on the line provided a lot of interesting images.

thread gras

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

I tried pulling the threads of in different environments.

thread

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

the proces of pulling the thread of the reels was really involved. I was absolutely amazed of how many mountains of loose thread came of just one densely wound reel.

iris liquid

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

I started playing with the dyeing liquids, they reminded me on magnified images of particles in cells.

rush

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

really enjoyed all the expeditions to collect the plants and tried to capture an atmosphere of the place.

onion again

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

I experimented with dried onion skins.

iris

Written by artist Anna on 26 July 2005

I am getting towards the end of my response now. So that's what happened so far:
When I was working in the school, I was really fascinated how through the individual responses of the children the whole project took of in directions, which I hadn' t anticipated. Also I saw a lot of potential in the way we used the technology for the development of my own work. And I got really inerested in the whole dyeing process.
So I decided to dye 22 (number of kids in the class) different colors and create some kind of installation with them, that changes through the interaction of the viewer. I started to collect plants, ordered a lot of bleached linenthread and began to dye. As well as that I gathered a lot of information on the way, wher the plants, grew, sounds, associations, memories, ....

connecting lines

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

During the open day all the young artists from Sooey did a great job as tour guides for the visitors.
So last not least I would like to thank all the wonderfull young artists from Sooey and their teacher for the huge amount of imagination, enthusiasm and hard work they put into the project. It was a great pleasure for me to work with you.
And thanks a million for the cards, they are really special.

loomprojections

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

the loomstructure wove together projections and shadows.

watch out for tut Enk A Mun

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Luckily nobody was messign cause Tut enk a Mun was quietly present telling the story of what happened in the Linenmuseum, when we got a little taste of his curse.

pattern game

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Lots of people were very succesfull at scoring points in the pattern game.

onion fashion the hit of the ayd

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

On Wednesday there was a great buzz about the place, lots and lots of people came and I think we were all a bit stunned by the incredibly positive response we got from everybody. The fashion show was a great hit, with Irene onion, the rapping Noble man, Posh Percival and Ann in the treedress. And no Posh Percivals were hurt in this production.

a dress cut out

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Somebody suggested to cut the shape of a dress out of the big fabric and project the microscans through it. The process of installing the exhibition became a series of experiments and opened lots of new avenues. Finally we were able to connect all the different threads we have been spinning.

T- shirts

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

The T- shirts went through phases of showing various woven patterns and images from the dyeing process. Luckily there wasn't a smell recorder, as somebody commented, because the indigo stank like hell.

weaving memories

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Weaving together images of the process with our objects was great fun.

spinning shadows

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Lots of interesting things happened with the overlapping images.

projections

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Once everything was up, we started projecting images onto all the different things and playing with the shadows.

washing lines everywhere

Written by artist Anna on 21 May 2005

Finally the long awaited date for the open day arrived in Sooey last wednesday. We were really busy on Tuesday, up and down tables and chairs and chairs on tables, to weave a huge web of washinglines across the hall onto which we attached all our dyed fabrics, T shirts, paintings, memory structures, ...

Ann's new dress

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

Aisling and Nicole designed a dress with all the fabrics we had dyed with parts of trees- a tree dress- and Ann did a wonderful modeling job.

a new game

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

A game was invented with one of the patterns we had found and the goal post.

Tut Enk a Mun

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

TuT Enk a Mun appeared and was disturbed in his sleep, which he does not like.

loom

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

A loom was finished today with photos from the loom in the folkpark.

rapunzel

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

Rapunzels' hair grew endlessly from flax and were very very smelly.

nobleman

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

All the costumes were made on that day from the dyed linen, flax and materials we had used for the dyeing.

lady onion

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

The rapping nobleman introduced lady onion, rapunzel and posh percival.

sowing connections

Written by artist Anna on 11 May 2005

This Monday we had our last day in Sooey, before the open day. It really felt like lots of threads were starting to come together.
Some girls connected a lot of the kinenstrips, which we had dyed with photos, patterns and sowing.

bluefeatherandstring

Written by artist Anna on 2 May 2005

Our microscans are getting more and more adventurous and ther was alot of building going on.
A loom structure and a goal,unfortunately no pictures of these.
and last not least one group was working on a shadowstory to unravel the mystery of Tut enk A Muns cloth.( no pictures again, sorry boys).

pattern

Written by artist Anna on 2 May 2005

some were making patterns with plasticin.

nose

Written by artist Anna on 2 May 2005

noses,

onionstring

Written by artist Anna on 2 May 2005

onionstrings

onionfabric

Written by artist Anna on 2 May 2005

fabric,

fire

Written by artist Anna on 2 May 2005

Luckily it was only a hole in a t- shirt, but the fire alarm set off anyway.
So lots more dyeing today, onionskins, coffee, lovely smell and logwood for purple.
We used the onionskins for various things,

washing

Written by artist Anna on 25 April 2005

Two teams were competing for the best washing line construction, hope they are both still up.

seedhead

Written by artist Anna on 25 April 2005

Whoever had their portrait taken could experiment with linseeds and flax.

flaxseeds

Written by artist Anna on 25 April 2005

We looked very closely at all the materials we used.

painting with dyes

Written by artist Anna on 25 April 2005

cooking

Written by artist Anna on 25 April 2005

steaming and boiling fabrics and plants

colour stew

Written by artist Anna on 25 April 2005

This week we had an extremely busy day in Sooey. We started dyeing with natural materials, some that we had collected and others which I had ordered from england. We had a testing laboratory, a dyeing factory( 2 big pots boiling away), a scanning station( examining the materials closely), and 2 washing line teams( hope they are both still up- yeah). As well as that some people got to do a little animation using linseeds and flax to change their portraits.
The whole schools was filled with smells( some pleasant, others, mmmmmh not so sure), steam, sounds of boiling liquids, slimy and shiny, plants and fabrics and some fabulous 60's tie- dye T-shirts.

shadow house

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

The roof structure got a house full of shadows.

memoryweave

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

and last not least another woven grit structure filled with weavings of dyed rags, noblemen, flaxflowers,..

grasweb

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

The gras structure filled with webs of memories.

memorygrit

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

The woven grit which was mended with incredible patience filled up with buses, woven rags and sheep.

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

The woven hut structure became a helicopter, transporting our fainted person to the hospital.

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

The woven tree structure became a memory tree, growing memories.

nobleman

Written by artist Anna on 13 March 2005

This morning we started talking about our memories from our visit to Lisburn and did pastel drawings of the things we most enjoyed. I think the dyeing was on top of most people 's list, quite a few were really intrigued by Tut Enk A Mun's cloth and the busjourney seemed to be a favourite too. There were also wedding dresses, spinning wheels, lots of buses, sheep, flaxflowers, noblemen,...
We then brought back in the woven structures which we had made before the trip.
I asked every group to create shapes and objects from their memories and weave them into their own structure in a way that suited their structure.

journey

Written by artist Anna on 5 March 2005

On tour to the Linenmuseum
It started with snow in Leitrim. The mountains looked fantastic covered in white.
The bus journey was good fun, although very looong.
Our tour began with somebody fainting, which got us all a bit worried, but luckily all ended well. Did 'Tut Enk a Mun' cloth show its power??? The tour guide captured our attention with lots of stories. So much to take in, the egyptians, the growing of the flax, the retting and scutching, spinning and weaving , in the cottage and then in the mills, the big looms, the sound of the weaving, like a dance, the wedding dress, the dollhouse teatowels.......
Everybody really enjoyed the dyeing workshop. We used onionskins, cochineal(dead beatles) and tea- got some lovely colours and patterns.
And then back on the bus, coming back was bit faster then going up and we did stop at the shop.

shadow pattern

Written by artist Anna on 27 February 2005

Another freezing cold morning- luckily most of us had remembered to bring gloves, cause we had planned a lot of outdoor work for today.
First of all we projected the photos from the day before and I think most of us were amazed to see all the brilliant images. In the photos of the big weave something unexpected had happened, that was really magical. The moving big web had become a blurry, liquid shape floating between people. I thought that was fantastic.
Today we became pattern detectives, armed with paper, pastels and cameras we set off to examine the school inside and outside in search of woven patterns.
Rubbings were taken, drawings and photos- lots of interesting patterns appeared.
Everybody then cut out one of their patterns in card, before we set about to build one of the patterns three dimensionally. We divided everybody into groups of 3 or 4 and each group had the task to construct one of the patterns with the materials provided. Lots of discussions what to build and how???? But soon very inventive constructions started growing. There was a roof like structure made from dried gras, grid like structures made with reeds, a tree structure made from sticks, gras, magnified a few thousand times made from sticks, and a tent structure. All the structures had a very special quality about them.
In the afternoon half the group took photos of their structures, playing with light and shadow, while the other half started doing sound drawings and scanning them in.
For me it was great to get to know everybody and see what different interests there are.

caught in the web

Written by artist Anna on 27 February 2005

We had a very intensive start in the Sooey school with 2 days in a row, last Thursday and Friday.
After introducing ourselves with a game we had a chat about art and artists and what they might do- lots of interesting contributions. We then had a look at some of my own work and I introduced a Chilean artist, Cecilia Vicuna, who makes really big woven installations. We talked about weaving and all the different woven patterns we could think of. Then each child got a chance to interact with the projections by making shadow shapes with their hands.
Our aim for the day was to look at a very very small woven pattern in our own hands, draw it blindly - and then create a really big woven pattern with each child making and becoming a thread in the fabric.
The preparations for the big weave involved lots of different activities, so we set up a few work stations. A measuring station, ironing station and decorating stations. There was a great hustle and bustle in the classroom and the hall getting all the threads ready. Once that was done we made our way to the hall, armed with video and stills camera, to create a huge moving woven pattern.
Some children became warp threads and others wove themselves through to create a weave. After a while we got some great rhythms of weaving going, so we started playing with the web, making it move like water, tangling and untangling people in the web-- until it all ended in a big big big tangle to everybodies delight. During the whole day we passed the video and stills camera around---got some brilliant footage and amazing photos.

dance for peace

Written by artist Anna on 31 January 2005

All the teachers and artists just had an intensive winterschool up in Portadown, where we got a chance to exchange ideas and experiences with all the people involved in the project. It was brilliant to meet everybody and incredibly inspiring to see all the different approaches the artists took in their response to the work with the children. All the children got a short workshop with every artist, which gave them the opportunity to experience all the different ways of working.
I was really fascinated to hear the teachers reports of how the project has impacted on their schoolwork.
And last not least we had some time to explore creatively the theme of 'weaving peace'.The image you can see is a part of a short animation my group came up with, it's called 'dance for peace'.
I certainly came away full of ideas and enthusiasm and being able to 'shoe the donkey'.

connections

Written by artist Anna on 11 January 2005

Hello to all the children and teachers in Sooey School,

My name is Anna, I am the artist who is going to work with some of you soon.
Today I had an intensive training session with Orla and Heather at kidsown. You wont believe the amount of cables we connected there. I learnt how to use the scanner and play around with the images, inverting into negative, magnifying and lots more. There is a lot to learn. My head was fuming with all the information and I thought I can never remember all this. But then when I did some experimenting at home I got a lot of things to work.
Phew- I just had to leave you there, because of the storm- thunder....
Back the next day.
Well the main thing I learnt, was to contact you and keep you up to date what's going on. Soon you will be able to do that, telling the other children, what we've been up to.
We will be using lots of different materials for our investigations and experiments, making connections, creating webs and weavings, unravelling things and putting them together in a different way....
I am looking forward to get started and to meet you all!
See you soon Anna

p1

Written by artist Anna on 11 January 2005

hello