Eve Wheeler

"Knitted Self"

Section MS15, Sarah Akigbogun

Keywords: landscape

This project focuses on ideas of belonging, place, and concepts of home. Recently moving to London from rural Devon has introduced feelings of being uprooted. How can one reconnect themselves with the concept of home?Ā  Ā  Knitting and self-portraiture will be explored as mediums to convey state of mind and reconnection with the ideas of home. Videos of Devon will be ā€˜knittedā€™ together with videos of London whilst knitting with my mother and buying wool will be woven throughout. Hand movements/gestures will be used to describe the process of knitting and the different types of stitches.Ā  Ā  The research methodology for this project included a trip to Epping Forest to study the landscape as a ā€˜home away from homeā€™. Experimenting with knitting by making a self-portrait motif and pattern was also used as part of the research to study the way my state of mind is reflected in my knitting and how this is impacted by place. The right side of the knitting represents concepts of home and an emotionally stable state of mind, the back side represents London and the anonymity and the unstable state of mind. Ā  Knitted art by Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse has inspired my knitworks whilst the film ā€˜Londonā€™ by Patrick Keiller helped inform my perspective on London and its significance to me. Ā  The project relates to the topic of distribution through the distribution of knowledge and skill throughout generations. It also relates to distribution through the distribution of yarn and the distribution of knitting via patterns.