Art and Heritage Online Database

Collection: Gray's School of Art Collection; Gray's School of Art Design Collection
Object Type: Research and Design Development
Artist/Maker: Abraham, Kiri
Date: 2006
Media/Materials: mixed media on cloth
Dimensions: 11.5 cm x 2 cm x 13 cm
Awards: RGU Textiles and Surface Design Purchase Award

Description:

Handmade research book featuring text, thread, textiles, photographs and printed material. That body of work began with an old photo album I had belonging to my Grandmother. She was from Edinburgh, and had spent a lot of her early adult life working as a nanny for military families in Palestine. The photographs and the text in the album became the focus of my attention, although conceptually, the work was about the journeys that people take both physically and emotionally.
It's funny, now that I am thinking about it as a 48 year old, I can see that it was part of a much larger attempt for me personally to make sense of my (mostly) European heritage, having been born and raised in a post-colonial country (NZ), living temporarily in Scotland, and the weird sense of not belonging in either place. The curse of colonialism!
A lot of the work was constructed using machine embroidery onto dissolvable fabric. Once the fabric is dissolved, the stitch partially hardens and holds its shape.

Object Number: ABDRG2006.41