Labour's Erasure

This work was done in an independent course with the patient supervision of Concordia professor Kelly Thompson.
I printed images of my body (the weaver) onto the warp threads that were almost 14 feet long, and then wove this piece of cotton at 40 threads per inch in a shibori weaving pattern.

I then, taking the fully woven work off the loom, pulled the shibori resist threads as tightly as possible, and dipped the entire work into a vat of indigo.

Initially I was disappointed with the result, as so much of the image that I had been so careful maintain intact as the loom was dressed and the piece was woven, disappeared once the piece was dyed. The mercerized cotton lost much of its luster as well, once dipped in the indigo.

The piece was made to speak to the invisibility of those who labour in the making of most of the textiles adorning our daily lives. Anonymity is often cited for textiles viewed in museums, and the modern day creators of many of our commodities are anonymous to us, further alienating the modes of production and consumption, the maker from the consumer. I believe this alienation has a huge part to play in the apathy of much of the developed world towards a system of modes of production that oppress and repress a large number of the majority world's population.

I wanted to create a hand-woven piece where the body whose labor went into its creation was present -just barely there, but never absent from the fabric itself. This piece of cotton will always bear the trace of its creator's image.