Sketch by Weaving:
a Windy Sunny Day on the Bridge
2023
Mária Valéria Bridge, Slovakia
I moved to Slovakia for 5 months as a bridge guard. The life of living near the Danube reminded me of the memory of sketching outdoors in my childhood. I would like to use this way to guard the bridge as an artist. At the end of May, I pulled 500 meters of yarns on the bridge. The length was just as long as the bridge. Whenever I met someone, I cut the yarn, changed color and tied a knot to remember, just like in ancient times. Then I used the yarn to weave. The movement of weaving is similar to my experience of walking back and forth on the bridge as a border connecting Slovakia and Hungary in these days.
That day I also encountered something unexpected. The wind on the bridge was so strong and broke the yarn into several pieces! I decided to collect all the yarns and marked them with gray threads when I wove, so that the wind of the day could be included in my sketch. I also tied the knots on the yarn to mark the cutting points by wind and made them visible on the back of the tapestry.
On the work you can read the people I met on the bridge through the change of colors and the knots, line by line. The colors of the wool were hand dyed after I observed the scenery here. Therefore the weaving work could become an artistic act that integrates light and shadow, walking and meeting on the bridge, and produce a landscape sketch that reflected a specific moment in time.
