The Urban Fabric_01

The Urban Fabric

Liz Kueneke

在水中,在車上,在湖邊,Liz Kueneke 一針一針為下一站目的地繡著The Urban Fabric(城市織物),自2018年她穿州過省,融合刺繡和地圖,來集體創作心理地理藝術。Psychogeography (心理地理學)不是真正的地理,也不是心理學的一部份,它是1950 年代在法國被發明出來的,用來研究地理位置與個人情感行為的關聯。

Stitch by stitch, Liz Kueneke hand-embroidered maps in the water, the car, and by the lake for her project, The Urban Fabric. Since 2018, she has been traveling across the globe, bringing together embroidery and maps to create psychogeographic art. Psychogeography, which originated in 1950’s France, is neither geography nor psychology; it is an intersection of both that focuses on the psychological experiences and emotions with a geographical location.

巴塞羅那、紐約、班加羅爾、非斯、基多、伊維薩、洛杉磯、阿姆斯特丹、薩爾嫩(瑞士)⋯⋯

拿著一些針線走訪五大洲,用行走的線步walking stitches,收集當地人對每個角落、廢棄建築,甚或公園長椅等一事一物的回憶。

Liz每到一個地方,就會攤開預先繡上當地地圖的The Urban Fabric在她的流動刺繡架上,邀請途人過來,透過刺繡留住他們的腳步,一邊分享他們的故事,一邊繡上自己和城市之間的印記。

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Barcelona, New York, Bangalore, Fez, Quito, Ibiza, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Sarnen (Switzerland)

With her needles and threads, Liz traveled through five continents to collect memories that people have with their environment. Whether an abandoned building or park bench, she translated the bits and pieces of people’s life into stitches.

Whenever she visited a new location along her journey, she would spread out a hand-embroidered map of that place on a portable embroidery table and invite passersby to share their stories and mark the significant places for them by sewing symbols on the map.

「在非斯聆聽一位男士訴說他在沙漠遊牧的祖母,年輕時被綁架去嫁給城市富商的經歷。在紐約一位名叫Pinky的少女,在布上記錄她目睹哥哥在家門前被槍殺的位置,這標記和向圍著刺繡的人分享,對她來說也算是一種宣洩的出口。在班加羅爾,不同的人都分享和在布上記下因不同宗教而不能説出來的愛情故事。除了暗黑的故事,也有不少美麗的故事。在基多,有些男士會將母親的名字繡在地圖的邊緣,是因為一個古老的文化——現代厄瓜多爾所在的瓦爾迪維亞曾經是一個母系社會。」

“In Fez, I was told a story by a man whose grandmother had been a young bedouin girl in the desert and who had been kidnapped and forced to marry a wealthy man in the city. A teenage girl named Pinky in New York, who sadly marked where her brother had been shot dead in front of her house. Hopefully, this marking and telling the others at the table about it was cathartic to her in some small way. In Bangalore, various people talked to me about and embroidered on the map, their love, whom they are not allowed to see, because they belong to a different religion. Instead of the dark stories, there also are wonderfully beautiful things. In Quito, some young men were embroidering the name of their mother into the edges of the map, this is because an ancient culture, the Valdivia, where current day Ecuador is located, was a matriarchal society.”

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「在這下面就像個派對!曾有位女士笑説:『刺繡很容易,就是一上一落,一上一落!』參加者男女老少,不分身份,有的人更把自己的塗鴉標誌,甚更吃過的早餐都繡上去。」

“It’s like a party under here! A woman smiled and said: ‘Embroidery is easy! It’s just in and out, in and out!’ There were people from all walks of life who participated. Some people would sew their graffiti icon on the map, and there were people who sewed their breakfast.”

「我通常會用棉質床單來製作,我很喜歡床單那種聯繫『在家』的感覺,即使人們在街上,他們也能感到私密和舒適,想起這城市也是他們的家。」

有時Liz甚至會直接用上婆婆的碎花舊床單來做刺繡。

「你住在哪裡?
哪裡是正能量的地方?
哪裡是需要改變的地方?」

「儘管我在所有地方都會問些一般性的問題,但每次事前,我都會和當地人交談,讓他們幫我決定一些具體的問題,我總是希望它們與地點相關,並引起參與者的深思。

對於顏色,我會根據所在的地方而特別制定,這取決於那地方對顔色的關聯含義,例如在美國,紅色有時被認為是一種象徵危險的顏色,所以我在那裡會用它來標示負面或危險的地點,相反在印度紅色象徵吉祥,所以我在那裡會用它來表達正能量的地點。」

通過這些問題、顔色和符號,讓人圍在一起,一邊刺繡,一邊向陌路人分享自己的生活和訴說藏在心裡的秘密故事。

“I usually use cotton bedsheets, I like how the bedsheet relates to our feeling of being at home…so that even when people are in the street they can feel intimate and cozy there, and also think about how the city is also their home.”

Liz even used her grandma’s old floral bed sheets for embroidery.

“Where do you live? Where is a positive place? Where is a place that needs changes?”

“In all places though, I ask the same general questions; however, before going to a place, I talk to locals who help me to decide on some specific questions. I always want them to be pertinent to the location and thought-provoking to the participants.

For the colors, I customize them depending on the place I am in, depending on the meaning that is generally associated with them in that place. For example, in the United States, red is sometimes considered to be a color signifying danger; so there I used it for negative or dangerous places, whereas in India it is auspicious so I used it there for positive places.”

These questions, colors, and symbols bring strangers together to sew while sharing stories and the secrets of life with each other.

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From The Aguascopio Project
Photographer: Tasya Menaker
Swimmers ellebannA and Liz Kueneke
Costume design by ellebann

年青時是韻律泳運動團隊成員的Liz説: 「我覺得我做刺繡和做藝術游泳其實很相似 —— 它們對我來說都是療癒和引發沈思的,而且兩者都是會引起我一定程度的恐懼,例如在The Urban Fabric的活動中,獨自一人暴露在異地的公共空間,或在做藝術游泳時在海中處理冷水或水母等的身體恐懼。我試圖利用手工藝和運動來製作出不同形式的藝術,即使在外表上,它們可能看起來風馬牛不相及,對我來說卻是非常接近。」

When Liz was young, she was on a synchronized swimming sports team. “I feel like what I am doing with embroidery and what I am doing with artistic swimming are actually similar. In the sense that both are healing and meditative to me. Both are also activities which provoke a certain amount of fear in me, for example, being alone and exposed in the public space in faraway places in the case of the artivities of The Urban Fabric, and physical fears, dealing with cold water, jellyfish etc, in the sea. I am trying to use both the handicraft and the sport to make different genres of art. Even though on the outside they may appear incredibly different, for me they are very close.”

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