www.warpweftmemory.net
“There are stains. What are we to do with them? Her sweat has turned brown with time and its acid has etched itself into her white cotton shirts and the lining of dresses. Skin oil has darkened the fingers of leather gloves, and her idiosyncratic walk has shaped the heels of her shoes. Her clothes have been recording devices.” – excerpt from The Warp and Weft of Memory, 2018.
In her latest multi-faceted work, Renée Turner explores the contents of Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht’s closet. Although Gisèle passed away in 2013 at the age of one hundred, the traces of her figure can still be sensed through the shape and wear of her clothes. Spanning decades, the range of garments illustrates her fascination with travel, textiles, and design. There are Greek woollen vests, a Chinese silk jacket and several dresses fashioned by the renowned Dutch designer Dick Holthaus. All were meticulously itemized in Gisèle’s own wardrobe inventories. As Turner notes, “Gisèle was a taxonomist of her own life.”
Her clothes and taxonomical fervour are mirrored in her photographic archive as well, which Turner has selectively digitized to create a semantically-driven, online narrative. Combining writing, photographs of her clothes, videos, and illustrations, she personally reflects on her direct encounter with Gisèle’s belongings, the intimacy of the closet and how its content reflects her remarkable life, the history of the Netherlands before, during, and after the War, women and their clothing, the privileges of class, and the persona of the female artist. While each garment has its own story, it can be woven into a larger tapestry of other narratives past and present. In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard writes: “Every poet of furniture—even if he be a poet in a garret, and therefore has no furniture—knows that the inner space of an old wardrobe is deep.” Turner’s online project and exhibition at Castrum Peregrini traces the depths of those echoes and reverberations and contemplates what will be remembered and what will be reduced to dust.
The Warp and Weft of Memory has contributions by: Frans-Willem Korsten, Kate Pullinger, Andre Castro, Manufactura Independente, Cristina Cochior and Cesare Davolio. The related public program will be posted on the Castrum Peregrini website and facebook page.
Renée Turner is an artist, writer and Research Lecturer at the Willem de Kooning Academy and Piet Zwart Institute. Since 2016, she has been an artist in residence at Stichting Castrum Peregrini. Her research over the past two years has resulted in public lectures, the exhibition and online narrative.
This project has been generously supported by the Mondriaan Foundation through the awarding of a two-year grant, Stipendium for Established Artists with Commissioner (Werkbijdrage Bewezen Talent + Opdrachtgever). The initial research phase was funded through a Start-Up Grant from the Creative Industry Funds (Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie).