Manchester Architecture Festival

Hi All!

I haven't used this blog address for a while!
I have been busy with my knitting business and new job, but I have also had little time to do an art project for the Manchester Architecture Festival. Me and an Architect called Jane Leach have been collaborating with a project called Jumper City. Here is more about Jane:

http://www.i-architect.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/architectjane

If you read some blog posts from this blog from 2009 there was a project where I was collecting old unwanted jumpers and sewing them together. Here is a link to the posts:

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/jump-in-to-jumper-i-mean-in-4-all-4-of.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/development-with-jumper-project.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/jumpers-in-cavendish-gallery.html

 In February Jane contacted me and asked if I was interested collaborating with her and after having a meeting and discussing ideas, Jumper City concept was created. Jane wanted to do a project for the Manchester Architecture Festival combining knitting and architecture. The plan became to collect Jumpers and then sewing them together into a big piece that will cover a bus stop.

We have been collecting jumpers from family members and friends, gone through charity shops and clothes swaps. Clothes swaps were organised by a group called Stitched Up, and they are doing all sorts of exciting workshops and fairs. Go and check: https://www.facebook.com/stitched.up.12

We have been working together with the Greater Manchester Transport (http://www.tfgm.com/) and got a permission in using a bus stop at the Piccadilly Gardens.

We have been sessions at Jane's house sewing the jumpers together into panels and planning the visual outcome and practicality of the piece. Jumpers have been taking over Jane's house and a big part of our lives.

Yesterday (Saturday the 16th June), we delivered the workshop at the Cube Gallery (http://www.cube.org.uk/), to finish of the piece and here is some pictures of the event:

Tomorrow we will face our final challenge (with the extra excitement of 6 a.m. start) that is to actually set up the installation in the Public Space. Monday will be a busy commuters day and we are hoping that we will gain a good amount attention. The installation will be on the Bus stop at Piccadilly Gardens, next to Krobar. We will be there until 8 p.m. and are looking forward to meeting all you pass-byers, commuters, lunch-breakers and everyone who is interested in seeing and interacting with our Jumper City piece!

Until Then !

Valpuri and Jane

links in this post:

http://www.i-architect.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/architectjane

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/jump-in-to-jumper-i-mean-in-4-all-4-of.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/development-with-jumper-project.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/jumpers-in-cavendish-gallery.html

https://www.facebook.com/stitched.up.12

http://www.tfgm.com/

http://www.cube.org.uk/

Photos by Irina Adam

Tremors in 60 seconds, A film by Rich Howe, Mark Horne and Kane Glover

Tremors in 60 Seconds from Baron VonKanehoffen on Vimeo.

Taiwanese Breakfast Club

During my Artist Workshop training at the Chinese Arts Centre I have met Yu-Chen Wang. Yu-Chen is a London based artist originally from Taiwan. She is currently doing a residency at the Chinese Arts Centre. This residency is her first and longed one, as after her graduation from Goldsmiths she has been working in design.

Yu-Chen is really open person, telling honestly about her personal life and it also reflects a lot in her work. She has told us (artist in the Chinese Arts Centre) about her development as an artist. She also told us her worries and struggles that she has had with trying to work and stay in this country, but also about other stuff that many of us artists face after graduation. Money worries, settling in the "real" world (I don't think I need to explain this part too much, we all know have learnt what that is once coming out from University), trying to figure out what is it that you are. It's not the most simple thing to figure out, even if you have got the medium clarified.

Today though I got an invite to go to a Taiwanese Breakfast Club that Yu-Chen is organizing every other saturday during 8 weeks period. Today was the first one and I was ever so excited to attend. I got e-mailed a menu before hand:

Menu: Sweet Potato Congee; Spring Onion and Pickled Radish Omelette; Seaweed; Tofu with Dried Soybean; Peanuts; Dried Cabbage with Carrots.

The Image is from Yu-Chens blog, which I will put a link on here at the end of this post.

I had nice chats with people at the breakfast working in different industries. The residency space in CHinese Arts Centre is so cool. It's a portion of the whole space, next to the gallery, with a studio space and a kitchen, and the best part of it is a little upstairs bedroom. There is metal ladder leading up there and it is like a little attic room with a tiny window looking to the street. Somebody described it well saying that it is like a cabinet you get in an overnight train. The best thing about it is that I heard that it's got it's own built bathroom as well. I don't know why I am raving about that room so much. It just seems like such a amazing way to do work. It's isolated and public at the same time somehow. I would love to work that way some day for a while. I think I will apply next year to do a residence.

There is a lot of thoughts in my head at the moment about being an artist and learning to be a designer as well. Both of the worlds are so attractive to me. I enjoy doing both kind of work, but I just have to find a balance and really have to master my time management. I also have to stop feeling guilty about not doing the other thing when doing the other thing, it's like having two lovers at the same time... or I don't know, two siamese cats who both want to be your favorite (?!)

My biggest inspirations and the things that I feel connected in the art world at the moment are

The Chinese Arts Centre

www.chineseartscentre.org

and Yu-Chen:

http://yuchenwang.com/blog/
http://yuchenwang.com/

Me and Yu-Chen share an interest in old machinery and one of my "to-do-list" has "Go to the Musem of Science and Industry" as Yu-Chen told me all about the old knitting and other industrial textiles machines that are there at the moment. It sounds amazing!

I also want to put my friend Joel in here, even thought I think he deserves his own post. He is amazing photographer and one of the most influential and closest(even though he lives in a different continent) people that I have in my life. Because of him I often question my existence as an artist and think about what paths to take. Hopefully I have more time to write about Joel soon.

http://www.joeljagerroos.com/

http://www.theresejoel.com/

Kisukiskis

Valpuri

Learning at the CAC (Chinese Arts Centre)

My studio

Hello!

I thought it is the time of showing what my studio looks like. I moved in there on August, and together with the girls whom I am sharing the studio with we moved a wall (!) so that we had a bigger space. Just quickly saying that the wall wasn't really like a concrete wall, it was more like, hand made wall board that was screwed onto the floor, so don't ask me to do anything like that in your houses (you probably weren't going to, anyway).

Here is my corner



And I think you have met Leila before



And here is the rest of the space, that the others use. The cutting tables, manikins and industrial sewing machines belongs to my "housemates".



I am sharing the studio with 4 other ladies, all of them has very interesting projects going on, and they are good experienced designers.

Go and see:

Sara's work in:

http://saralichouhan.com/synopsis.aspx

Consta's work in: (the website isn't working yet, but coming soon)

http://www.constanzefriedrichs.co.u

Silvia's work in:

http://www.mysewingbox.com

Silvia and Consta are also doing fashion courses, (hopefully I have a little knitting slice there somewhere) and I truly recommend that if you are thinking such things to do yourself, contact them! Believe you me, they are good! Go and see what kind of courses they offer in:

http://www.stitchcraftmanchester.co.uk

Hen is not only a dressmaker, but she is also a musician, go and listen:

http://www.myspace.com/silverclubuk

And here is a little treat at the end. This is Hen's other band Sister's of Transistors, the costumes are made by Consta and Silvia:

Jump in to a jumper. I mean in 4. All 4 of you, all at once!

Hello Again!

I have been wanting to update this blog all week, but I have been having some technical problems to upload a video, which is a slideshow of my last and this year's work. It caused me a lot of stress, and I will overcome it in some point when I have the time to go back to it, but meaning while, I decided that I don't want that to stop me to put some more exciting stuff on.

At the moment I am collecting woolly jumpers, or anything that is knitted with yarn material, even machine knits. It is going to be a part of a bigger piece and collection of work what is still in progress. I have been sewing the jumpers together, meaning to only construct a surface, but when I had sewn four jumpers together, I thought of, what would it look like if there was people wearing it at the same time. 

It was very fun afternoon, please look at the photographs.

Big thank you goes to my lovely models

Jennifer Lowler

Elizabeth Ralph

Ellie Greenwood

Lawrence Crompton

PS. Has to be said, that a Manchester band called Doris and the Jumpers, is looking to wear one big jumper, with three head holes in it. We might work together on that. 

Dear Readers,

I started a project about a year ago,where I wanted to try to knit the distance between Oxford Road and Piccadilly.I had just moved to Manchester and I was trying to illustrate my feelings about it within these two localized points in the city. It was a part of my course work for the artcourse I am doing. However, knitting the same thing day after day, as much as I enjoyed it,seemed pointless when there was so many different projects to participate on, and when all the equipment to experimental are available in the university,so I left this project aside for a while.

I have always wanted to go forward with this project,but I am struggling with time and I was wondering, for my academic statement for the project,what other dimensions does it have? As working with Artyarn, I have discovered new ideas to go forward with this labour intensive and ambitious craft. Especially when creating very big pieces,like this big knitted roll.
So I am now asking, if you the readers, would like to contribute for this project?

The roll at the moment is approximately 40 metres long, so about 960 metres of knitting to go. The piece is about 13 cm wide,knitted with 7 mm needles with 18 stitches and two double knitting yarns at the same time.The pattern is just knitting on both sides. This doesn't mean that participants have to knit with the same materials, just trying to give the idea of the thickness of the material. Acrylic yarn was colourful and cheap enough to work for this project, and as the piece is going to be rolled on the street to measure, I didn't want to use the most dearest of materials.

Everyone who contributes should write their names on a little fabric tag and sew this on to their piece they are contributing, this way everybody gets credited for their effort. Only rules for what the piece should be like, is that its 12-15 cm wide and strong enough to be rolled on the street. This project is ongoing,until the whole distance between Oxford Road and Piccadilly has been knitted.

The project has gained some interest from the media already, such as BBC and North West Visions. 

Contributions to:(with your name and where you are from, if wanted to be credited)

Valpuri Vihriala

E-mail me to the address below, and I will either send you the address to send the piece to, OR if you live locally,we can always meet up and you can hand me the piece that way.

More information: e-mail: rusakkokeitto@hotmail.com and mark the message "Knitted roll" as I am not opening messages which I don't know what they include. Please do not send images.