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Circling

Laura Wilson

Runs from: Sunday 17 December 2023 to Thursday 25 January 2024


Laura Wilson - Circling

Circling is a solo exhibition by artist Laura Wilson. The work is a series of weavings made with linen. They explore how memory is created, stored and translated through the body, learning, movement and labour. Linen is one of the strongest fibres in existence. It resists mildew and bacteria, it is hardwearing and doesn’t easily decompose.

Traditionally skilled people were required to produce it. Over the last two years Laura has been learning how to weave by hand on a table loom mentored by weaver Claire Whelan. She has also been researching the social history of the fabric and its facture.

Laura has researched into her family history, the production and export of linen in Northern Ireland and the history of Linenopolis. (Linenopolis is the name given to her home city of Belfast in the 19th Century when it was at the centre of the world’s linen industry.) Some of her ancestors worked in factories in Portadown and Lisburn in Northern Ireland as weavers, warpers and yarn winders. She explores ways information is passed on from one person to another and between generations, in particular how knowledge can be stored within the body.

Works in this exhibition were developed in parallel with Laura’s changing pregnant body. The largest, 'Winding, then Winding' (2023), was produced after childbirth. It took structure from the cycle of her day caring for her newborn - changing the weaving pattern or weft yarn following nursing or soothing. The linen maps the passage of time as a new parent, growth spurts, cluster feeding and naps. Laura considers that as a counterpoint to the increasing pace of mechanical production and often invisible, outsourced labour of today’s new technologies and unsustainable production of fabrics for fast fashion, as well as the relationship between women’s work and labour.

The exhibition title comes from Laura’s newest work presented here for the first time. 'Circling' (2023) is a weaving made with the artists mother, who she taught how to weave earlier this year as part of her exhibition at CCA Derry~Londonderry. They wove together on the first day of the exhibition and other weavers from Northern Ireland were invited to contribute to the weaving during the exhibition run. Laura’s mother passed away in Autumn 2023 and Laura has completed the weaving that they started together.

A text by Kerri ní Dochartaigh accompanies the work and is available for visitors to take away, or download from www.laurawilson.me [External link]

The exhibition in Darlington Library brings to light Darlington’s rich and fascinating history producing high quality linen. Until the 19th Century linen was one most important trades in the town and surrounding villages. The first machine for spinning flax was developed and used in Darlington by John Kendrew and patented in 1787. Pease’s Mill (now demolished) sat at the centre of the town, employing mainly women and children in its early days.

Wilson has selected objects and artworks from the Local Studies Archives and Darlington Borough Art Collection and presented them alongside her work. These include the painting Pease’s Mill, Darlington, County Durham by Myles Meehan (1904 – 1974).

Funded by the County Durham Community Foundation’s Dover Prize Fund. Thank you to Durham County Local History Society as copyright holders for granting Darlington Borough Council permission to reproduce The Linen Weavers of Hurworth-on-Tees article by Vera Chapman in this exhibition and to:

  • Stephen Bunting
  • Severina Dico-Young,
  • Kerri ní Dochartaigh,
  • Jack Field,
  • Rob Field,
  • Sharon Gollan,
  • Catherine Hemelryk,
  • Ian Rigby,
  • Claire Whelan,
  • Alex Wilson,
  • Creative Darlington,
  • Darlington Cultural Volunteers,
  • the staff at Darlington Library
  • all the participating weavers.

Laura Wilson was born in Belfast and lives and works in London. She has an interest in how history is carried and evolved through everyday materials, trades and craftsmanship. She works with specialists to develop sculptural and performative works that amplify the relationship between materiality, memory and tacit knowledge.

Wilson’s interdisciplinary and research-based works have been exhibited widely including at:

  • CCA Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland
  • MIMA, Middlesbrough (2023)
  • Site Gallery, Sheffield (2022)
  • The Collection, Lincoln with Mansions of the Future, UK
  • First Draft, Sydney, Australia
  • The Landmark Trust, Wales, UK (2021)
  • 5th Istanbul Design Biennial – Empathy Revisited: Designs for More than One
  • Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, UK as part of New Geographies (2020)
  • The British Museum, London, UK with Block Universe
  • Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK
  • The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London, UK (2018)
  • SPACE, London, UK
  • V&A Museum, London, UK
  • Invisible Dust at Hull and East Riding Museum, Hull, UK (2017)
  • Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2016 & 17)
  • Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK (2016)
  • Whitstable Biennial, UK (2014)
  • Camden Arts Centre, London, UK and Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2013)
  • W139, Amsterdam and De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium (2012).

A Churchill Fellow, Wilson was awarded the inaugural Jerwood New Work Fund 2020, the Dover Prize 2021 and will be undertaking a Fellowship with the V&A Museum in 2024.

laurawilson.me [External link]

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