Technicolour DreamCloth by Mika Haykowsky and Breanna Barrington
SITE #1:
Sir Winston Churchill Square
Mika Haykowsky and Breanna Barrington
Technicolour DreamCloth
Mika Haykowsky and Breanna Barrington, Cut From the Same Cloth Collective Weaving Installation, 2022. Scrap fabric, handmade loom, river wood, yarn, found objects. Dimensions: 5’ x 6’ x 1’.
Technicolour DreamCloth is a large-scale participatory weaving installation that invites festival guests to weave in scraps and leftover fabric, discards, pair-less socks, and any other material with a story to tell. Braiding fabric through our fingers reconnects us to the everyday materials around us in an increasingly industrial world.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“In our increasingly industrial world, fabric has become a given. It is common to throw out resource intensive denim pants because they have a stain, or a sock because the fabric has pilled, or the pair has been separated. ”
For thousands of years, fabric has been the product of time consuming, artisanal processes—skills that were passed down from generation to generation. Fibers had to be grown, harvested, woven, cared for, and expertly arranged to create comfortable clothing. Shirts were not thrown out simply because they had a hole, or a stain. Instead, they were mended with spun thread, repaired, and altered to fit changing bodies throughout many life stages. If wearable items could not be mended any further, usable scraps were cut down and turned into quilts or reborn as patches themselves.
In our increasingly industrial world, fabric has become a given. It is common to throw out resource intensive denim pants because they have a stain, or a sock because the fabric has pilled, or the pair has been separated. Textile waste has become one of the world’s leading pollutants; we currently have enough apparel to clothe the next six generations, and the fast fashion machine is not showing any signs of slowing down. Aside from a few pockets of folks who have kept the old ways alive, the reverence humans used to have for this type of material has shifted to indifference.
Technicolour DreamCloth is a large-scale participatory weaving installation where we invite visitors to honour their retired clothing by incorporating their leftover fabric into a collective tapestry. Braiding fabric through many fingers to create an immersive woven art piece that reflects the time we are living through. Participants can take materials from the baskets of pre-ripped fabric or bring their own special items to be transformed.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Mika Haykowsky and Breanna Barrington form the “Yielding Effort Group”, an art collective that yields effort from the public: instructional poems inscribed on old windows, collecting and sharing dreams, and weaving shared sentimental objects into collective tapestries. They have also created collaborative sculptures for A Cold Sweat at Lowlands Gallery and participated in a Creative Incubator by Good Women Dance which resulted in a split-screen video performance. The artists met during their BFAs at the U of A. Although they were in separate graduating classes, they reconnected during the RBC Emerging Artist Apprenticeship at The Nina Centre for the Arts in 2020.
The artist duo has built several participatory looms resulting in shared tapestries, creating a colourful chaotic ode to community and different—yet shared—identity. The locations of these looms have included Latitude 53, Gathering Threads Festival, Kaleido Festival, and Nooks and Crannies Festival. Mika Haykowsky also has a permanent collaborative loom set up at the West Ritchie Community Garden.
Mika Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mika.haykowsky/
Mika Website: https://mikah.ca/
Breanna Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prairie_bre/
Breanna Website: https://www.breannabarrington.com/