Meeting in material

Published in the exhibition: "Craftsman of the Year" March 19 - April 9, 2021The piece is about sharing cultural heritage between three dyers from Sweden, Russiaand Finland. We met in Komi, Russia 2019 and found we all dye yarn and fabric withplants and started sharing experiences. The sharing and learning of each other’sprocesses and thoughts about dyeing and cultures in our countries materilised to acollaborative quilt. The process of making each fabric swatch to joint them to the quilt was marked by slow handmaking and sharing. Dyeing with plants is slow and requires a lot of waiting in different parts of the process. Also stitching by hand is slow but when done with others, it is an ideal time for discussion and sharing of life. When hands move, the thoughts start flowing more freely.The recipes for dyeing can teach us greatly about the traditions and life of the people in particular area. The colors, which they have received from local plants has formerly influenced the clothing, household items and overall color perception. The quilting process has had several layers of slowness. Dyeing the fabrics and yarns over a long course of time, stitching them first to individual pieces and finally assembling them together into a quilt. The original idea was to meet together face-to-face and stitch but the COVID-19 pandemic changed the gatherings to regular weekly online meetings. Hence another layer of slowness appeared in the internet connection