In his book Landmarks, the English nature writer Robert McFarlane advocates for the creation of “a glossary of enchantment for the whole earth, which would allow nature to talk back and would help us to listen.”* While cataloguing the earth might prove too daunting, this two-day writing workshop with guests Kate Briggs and Kate Pullinger offers a modest step…
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In my garden, colonial legacies reside in the hydrangeas and japonicas. They were originally brought back from Japan by Philipp Franz von Siebold who worked for the Dutch East India Company. An Acanthus mollis, whose leaves characterise Corinthian columns, continues to spread through a network of subterranean rhizomes. Abortifacients, such as Bishop’s weed, artemisia, and woodruff, are present too.
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Framing and Reframing Archives: Panel discussion moderated by Alice Twemlow with Renée Turner, Lauren Alexander, Dr. Andrea Stultiens
Some of the issues raised: What does the artist bring to the archive, what are the ethics of subjective interventions and how does epistolary work as a research methodology.
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Histories are woven, knotted, and impossible to disentangle. This is especially true when working through the recent past with linked threads to the present. Moving through Gisèle’s clothing and photographic archive, Turner reflects on the epistemology of the closet, the pitfalls of taxonomical fervour, and the complexity of entangled histories.
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Moving through The Warp and Weft of Memory, an online archive of artist Gisèle van der Gracht’s closet, Renée Turner and Cristina Cochior will be discussing the porous border between enumeration and narration. Understanding the database as a form of writing, they will read through elements of the site and recount the making of the archive. Key to their approach is the language of weaving and the use of the Semantic MediaWiki to create a narrative tapestry.
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You know, one of the things I like about writing in a digital environment is that there is no master narrative, only tentative propositions, networked connections that can be followed or ignored. Maybe as a form, it suits my own inability to prioritise and make decisions and my desire to circle around things without really landing on a single point or conclusion.
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Dieuwertje Hehewerth: This letter-writing, paired with the focus on clothes, makes the research focus on, and work through, ephemeral forms. They are objects that have a transitory quality – a quality of carrying and covering – of existing as an in between. I’m curious if you see these relations? And more directly in relation to…
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The exhibition took place in Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht, where her work still hangs. The opening took place on August 24th and the exhibition ran until October 2, 2018.
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There are other stains too. Her sweat has turned brown with time and its acid has etched itself into her white cotton shirts and the lining of dresses.
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Combining writing, photographs of her clothes, videos, and illustrations, Renée Turner reflects on her direct encounter with Gisèle’s belongings, the intimacy of the closet, and how its content reflects her life, the history of the Netherlands before, during, and after the war, women and their clothing, the privileges of class, and the persona of the female artist. While each garment has its own story, it can be woven into a larger tapestry of other narratives, past and present.
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