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.
Read MoreThe Warp and Weft of Memory
Presentation at Het Nieuwe Instituut: Speculative Archives
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.
Read MoreInterview by Amy Pickles with Renée Turner for the Rotterdam Arts & Sciences Lab
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.
Read MoreDieuwertje Hehewerth in conversation with Renée Turner for Pandemic
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…
Read MoreFolding
One of the challenges of making The Warp and Weft of Memory was bringing a sense of materiality to the digital. After all, clothing and textiles are tactile. Taffetas are crisp and rustle when moved, wool is rough or soft depending on how it has been treated, and silk is smooth and light to the touch.
Read MoreOpening of The Warp and Weft of Memory at H401
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.
Read MoreThe Warp and Weft of Memory publication
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.
Read MoreThe Warp and Weft of Memory (online narrative archive)
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.
Read More15 – 17 th of December: Women + Craft + Poetry
You are cordially invited to our second Artists Weekend: a weekend full of artist talks, presentations, conversations and poetry readings, from Friday December 15 till Sunday December 17 in H401. The Artists Weekend is part of our 2017 year programme The Female Perspective, curated by Nina Folkersma. This programme focuses on issues around female identity,…
Read MoreThe House of Gisèle
My question at this moment is, were these notes to herself, just simple reminders, or were they written for someone like me, an outsider who might decipher or interpret them later?”
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