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Rosie H. Cook

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Conservation and Climate Change

The Sound of Shadows

Making Connections

2017 Asialink Arts Residency

Asialink+AsiaSoc.23March(1)

  Crazed Puppets

Crazed Puppets 04

 This is not a Kowangan

bundengan-01

#APTCCARN5

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Today I spent an unnecessary amount of time contemplating a padded board I’m still only partially done making. It already has a nice layer of thick cotton on it and now I’m covering it with an exquisite emerald green silk which was previously dyed for a beetlewing dress costume treatment. I’m trying very hard to tension it properly, and to keep the grain aligned. I also am very conscious of the sensorial experience. I loved the effect of the shadows and the pins, almost as much as the feeling of the tensioned silk when I was done. I spent a while just stroking it, running my hand back and forth on the smooth silk, satisfied with the sensory feedback and enjoying the luxurious feeling. I try to take nothing for granted, and to remember the silkworms and the manufacturing processes, as well as the labour of the @zenzietinkerconservation textile conservators who colour-matched and dyed this fabric before me, carefully snipping the selvedge so it would lay flat when drying. The board will be secondary to the beautiful object that will be mounted on it, even though it was carefully made by hand (including the support panel itself) and each element contains its own story and connections, and the tips and anecdotes of the different people who helped me along with the construction process. The board as a whole feels very special to me, not least because I have made it during a particular time in my life, but it will disappear into the owner’s life without a look back at me. I could write an entire story just about this board. It is such strange thing to consider the secret past and hidden life of the conservation mounts and materials which the rest of the world never even thinks of — unless its @internationalmountmakersforum who think of nothing else. #textileconservation #conservationtextile #objectbasedlearning
Bringing my work home with me… a section of a soft inner padded mount for a garment, made from cotton bumf and covered with habutai silk. The yellow thread is for tacking the silk in place before stitching, instead of pinning, because the silk is so fine and slippery.
This is also textile conservation! Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gathered fascinating and terrifying insights into TT motorbike racing in the Isle of Man. These photos are so cool in about 5 different ways. Let me enumerate them for you!
Day stitches / Night stitches
I’m in Brighton for a month at @zenzietinkerconservation and currently enjoying riffling through a hundred shades of cream silk for a mounting project. It’s honestly dreamy to be surrounded by textile conservation everywhere I look, I have missed this so much. I cannot express how grateful I am to Zenzie and everyone else here at the studio for being so welcoming as I re-enter #textileconservation.
I'm not a Rihanna groupie so I was not prepared for how I bawled nearly the entire way through this performance (full on sobbing by the end). I have so many feelings! Rihanna, soundtrack to my twenties, sounding phenomenal, visually the set and costumes were incredible, and then her revealing her pregnancy in The. Most. Extra. Way anyone ever has or ever will. Her pregnant body neither hidden nor contorted into "sexy", her outfits are so punchy, she was the embodiment of power, of women's empowerment... I am not usually sentimental about pregnancy but seeing her suspended up there, touching her stomach as she sang "We're like diamonds in the sky", she was so strong and fearless and so above all the... rubbish superficial idiocy of everything she was literally floating above. I am sure we will see some really eloquent takes on this performance in the media, I'm just so moved by it I had to throw down some words to remember my feelings. If I could buy this performance as a virtual experience I would sit inside it over and over again. So. Good. #rihanna
I made this collage yesterday at a creative workshop we occasionally host at the gallery with @couleurs_de_femmes. The workshop theme was “La femme que je suis, La femme que je veux être” (The woman I am, the woman I want to be). This was my second collage workshop and I am finding my own way, it’s so meditative flicking through magazines and ripping things out, letting inspiration come to you and finding it sort of comes together in the end. I can’t see collage working outside of a workshop because I need the structure of a dedicated time and space where we just focus on un-focusing. I am really happy with the outcome. I am currently living down in the red zone, which is centred around a beautiful woven cluttered chaos of splintered projects although gradually evening out. But I’m definitely dreaming up towards clarity, space, silence and skies. #collage #collageart #couleursdefemmes
Yesterday we went to the Vernissage of the Art Genève art fair. One of my favourite works was by Iranian artist Zahrasadat Hakim — actually, two of her works. “En levant les yeux au ciel, j'ai vue six avions de guerre” 2023, Glazed ceramic, 77×75×30 cm, & “Le miroir ne me contient pas” 2023, Embroidered cloth, mirrors 200x130 cm. Thank you @zahra_hakimm for the beautiful insights into your work. #artgeneve2023
I’ve not posted nearly enough about the work I’ve been doing with @gallerybrulhart, considering what a huge part of my life it has become! Last week was the launch of our latest exhibition, and was a huge step up for me in terms of being able to collaborate with our beautiful artists, their work, and the audience – and especially working closely with the curator of the exhibition. In addition to the exhibition launch party, we also organised a “dialogue event” where two of our artists discussed the theme of feminism(s) threaded through their practice as African contemporary artists, with each other, the curatorial team, and the audience. I’m so grateful that the gallery director is open to suggestions of how we can put our artists front and centre of our gallery, from including videos and texts in our displays, to hosting these events where people can directly engage with the women behind the artworks. I have a lot to say and show about all this but since I am writing a thesis about this internship (due in a couple of weeks….) I should be focusing the outputs there for now! #gallerybrulhart
9 years ago in Trongsa, Bhutan. A Facebook memory providing me with another submission for #rosielovescircles.
How do you solve a problem like… packing contemporary art, involving mixed media combinations of increasingly fragile organic materials, sewn onto a canvas stretched over a chassis? Well… I’m working on it. #conservatorproblems
Spotted and immediately added to my personal collection, during a visit to the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève.
Just made a last minute visit to the Helvecia photography exhibition at the MEG, which ends today. It covers is a topic I hold close to my heart: understanding that there is no singular, objective, scientific truth. There are a multitude of lived experiences and interpretations thereof. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as it is simply promoted as “a forgotten colonial history”, photographed by Dom Smaz. The people who share their story in Helvecia are often unconcerned with the “facts” of the colonial origins of Helvecia — but even though their own stories don’t always align with those of the Swiss and Brazilian archives, taken together, they build a simultaneously more meaningful and accurate account. Like a blurry mosaic which gives a much more precise account of history and its repercussions through time. I loved this exhibition, and I hope that the audiences appreciated more than the beautiful photos and strong personalities that came across in their video interviews. #Expohelvecia walks a very subtle line between trying to provide entertainment and education (given its museum context) and giving justice to the complexities of colonial pasts as they are experienced in the present.
Just a little Friday night stitching after a week of coughing - I saw @wearemadaher have a sale on at the moment and honestly hard to resist but I already have two projects from there to finish before I start collecting more! #embroidery
I’ve been too sick to stitch but today I was happy to feel well enough to go through my pile of embroidery designs and select a new “small” project, having finished my golden poppies cross-stitch. My “big” project has remained untouched since early November sadly — the Quinto Acuto will not be finished by the end of the year. Anyway, today it’s been an absolute joy working on this gorgeous chintz-inspired embroidery kit! I first spotted it early this year and was immediately in love with it; my mother gifted it to me after asking me what I would like to celebrate 2 years of my own motherhood — this was my immediate request! It’s a really beautifully designed kit with a painted chintz base, from @wearemadaher (also they are so lovely and provide incredible customer service). I can’t wait to get to work on this some more — it’s also so relaxing after counted cross-stitch, where a single wrong stitch can throw your whole design off. #embroidery #rosielovescircles
Finally found a use for the #oddrunembroidery blanket I focused all my PPD energy into two years ago when we moved from Taiwan to Geneva. 🎄
A dreamy Christmas Eve for me = baby goes down to sleep at 7:45pm and I work slowly on this black-on-black darning project, going cross-eyed in between coughing fits. Whilst eating a Terry’s Chocolate Orange we found at Intermarché today! Only €3.90, bargain 😝 enjoy this ugly photo that definitely isn’t grid-worthy. #darning
Where’s the ironing filter? I could wait to share this until I’ve pressed and even perhaps mounted it, but to be honest I have other things to do and also emotions to process about it. At times I’ve been motivated by spite to finish this cross stitch piece because the pattern was so badly designed I wanted to get it done and give it a detailed review pointing out all its sins (including that the design was stolen from a tattoo artist, a fact I learned too late after starting). Unfortunately the designer deleted it from their Etsy shop just days ago so no reviewing for now 🤷‍♀️. Crumpled and rumpled and possibly missing some back stitches (impossible to read the pattern clearly to make sure!), I still think it’s a beautiful image of golden poppies, based on an original design by @c.remington.art . #crossstitch
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