YARN TREE
The journey of a yarn is a tale woven on the textile, produced on a handloom. The main idea behind this textile installation is to give form to the visual ode of this beautiful artform and the enchanting influence of natural and sustainable fibre.
The story begins at the roots of the installation where one can observe the cotton flowers that are laid on the sandy terrain. This has been done to indicate the organic cotton utilized in the inception of the journey of a yarn. These cotton flowers which are further converted to yarn are dyed. Here, the natural dyes are carefully selected in order to represent the primary and secondary colors of the color wheel.
Naturally dyeing is synonymous with sustainability. The use of natural dyes is given due importance in order to emphasize the health benefits as opposed to health threats that chemical dyeing of fabrics pose. The colors red, blue, yellow, orange, green and violet were achieved by using natural ingredients like red cabbage, turmeric, onion peel and beetroot respectively. The main idea behind the selection of these primary and secondary colours is to assert the fact that all the colours are derived from these.
These dyed yarns joining together are shown to be converging and furthermore displaying white. This is to directly represent the visual illusion of white colour shown by the spinning colour wheel. These yarn strands leading to the knot indicate all the colors joining together to form white colour as a visual illusion. After the convergence, comes the divergence. This is where the yarn strands move on to the next stage of the weaving process.
The diverging yarns are shown to be entering a triangle that represents the triangular gap observed between the intersection of the warp yarns and the real handloom set-up, while weaving. In this triangular structure of the installation, the yarns are shown to be interlaced, much like the interlacement in the original weaving process. The shuttle is also shown to be moving to and fro to capture the original movement of the shuttle in the handloom set-up.
The yarns approaching the end of their journey are showcased to be in the process of taking the form of the final product, a dress. The loose yarns are consciously allowed to fall freely to emphasize on the point that the garment is still in the process of weaving. The miniature models of the unfinished garments are symbolic of the fruits of the yarn tree.
The journey of the yarn is shown to be approaching towards its end at the higher most tier of the installation. However, there is a symbolic meaning hidden within these layers of presentation. Here, the fallen cotton flowers of the Yarn Tree are emblematic not only for the beginning of the journey of a yarn, but are the seeds fallen from the tree itself that indicates the repetition of a circular system within the handloom production. It tries to bring to life how a flourishing handloom industry could give rise to stable sustainability in fashion.
