Be Like the Wind and Water
AP2 Hall of the Frac Grand Large museum in Dunkirk adorned with the textile work The Forty-seventh Samsara by Yemi Awosile (image: Martin Argyroglo).
We all think about legacy or posterity to varying degrees. Perhaps more so if you are a craftsperson, maker or arts worker. If you are, your thoughts are likely on what your work says about you, your social or political context, the time that you live in, your creativity or mastery, or maybe just the vastness of your imagination and how much you let yourself go there. For textile designer Yemi Awosile, on the occasion of her biggest public arts commission to date supported by the Rubis Mécénat endowment fund for Dunkirk’s 2023 Triennale Art & Industrie organised by FRAC and LAAC, the question of legacy was embraced through a consideration of the cyclicality of materials, ideas and relationships, and the imprint they make on a place and on people environmentally and socially.
Titled The Forty-seventh Samsara, Awosile’s 10x10m textile work adorns the facade of the AP2 Hall of the Frac Grand Large museum in Dunkirk. The deep reds and blues of the pattern that pepper the design are reminiscent of the graphic languages and codes that once led a thriving textile industry around Lille and Dunkirk following the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Driven by a desire to better understand the history of the area that her work would occupy, the designer delved into and studied local textile archives. Leaning into the varying meanings of the Sanskrit word after which her commission is named – flowing around, cyclicality of life – Awosile borrows that learning to further understand and be in dialogue with her “silent collaborator”: nature and its elements.
Its clear in our conversation that the triennale’s theme of “Human Warmth” can be felt in both Awosile’s work and the story of how she got there, but also in her experience of the people and organisations that she has worked with and the support that they offered. The symbiosis between the guiding principles that underpin the work of the endowment fund Rubis Mécénat, paired with the trust of the triennale's curators Anna Colin and Camille Richert, led to a complete change of perspective for the designer, one that she will be bringing forward into future work. “It has changed the way that I view relationships with collaborators,” she says, including funders and institutions. “Now that I’ve tasted it, I can’t go back.”
Awosile at her studio in east London (image: Dunja Opalko).
Georgina Johnson I wanted to start off by asking you about the title of the work, because I think it's a Sanskrit word – in Hinduism, it refers to ideas about the world; in Buddhism, it means the cyclicality of life. For you, how does this connect to the overall theme of the triennale, “human warmth”? What does it mean to you?
Yemi Awosile I was thinking about this idea of how we consume... not just products and objects, but ideas, and how we sometimes don't take into account how we may dispose or discard these things. The theme of the triennale was something that was very important for me: the lifecycle of products and of textiles, materials and tools.
Georgina Were you asked to look back into archives to aid this?
Yemi It was something that I wanted to do, only because I didn't really have much knowledge of the industry or the area. I was coming from scratch and was actually really dependent on the stories that people told me – that kind of guided me.
Preparatory work for The Forty-seventh Samsara (image: Dunia Opalko)
Georgina That's really rare, to have that natural flow come from organic connections.
Yemi What I learnt, though, was that there was a really deep relationship between the lace industry in Calais and the lace industry in the UK – Nottingham specifically.
Georgina They were growing at a parallel rate?
Yemi Well, when you go through the archives, it's interesting to see how the progress of innovation comes through access to different types of materials. So, for instance, you can see when cotton comes in, and we know why that would come in. So you're looking at the material, and suddenly it's not just the lace, it's actually a reflection of what's happening in the world.
Georgina So it's the sociopolitical being wrapped up in textile. Thats fascinating to be able to track and cross-reference that – the relationships between the different industries that are being built and people who are moving through places. It makes that archive a vibrant, breathing thing.
Yemi Exactly. When I went to Lille, I started looking at the plans for the weaves and I actually took aspects of these from the archive to give me more of the form for the piece.
“You’re looking at a material, and suddenly it’s not just lace, it’s actually a reflection of what’s happening in the world. ”
Georgina I wanted to ask, how do you scale these things up? Because this is the largest scale project that you've done in terms of size.
Yemi Definitely. This idea of these patterns being a language that a textile practitioner would know and anyone else would look at and not see... there is actually a lot of information in there. So then I'm thinking about textiles, the coding that exists within them, a literal language that is going to be a woven fabric. I started off small, very small. When you look at digital image or physical plan, it's nice and seductive, it's exciting. But actually the physical process of making something big was hard.
Georgina But I guess it's also about working with the environment and elements.
Yemi I always say that for this project, I had a silent collaborator which was the wind. The wind basically dictated everything in terms of the form and material. So in my mind, I had an idea of what I wanted, and then the wind would say, "No you can't do that.” We had the structural engineer come in to assess the practicality of the idea and from there everything scaled up. Even though I was looking at these original tiny drawings, everything had to scale.
Awosile planned the work out digitally (image: Dimitri Galitzine)
Georgina It's really nice to be able to work in a unique landscape – it's challenging you beyond your usual parameters. I was going to ask how your relationship with Rubis, the funder for this was?
Yemi Three weeks before installation was when we found out that we couldn't use the original site we had planned. I thought that they would say, “Well, you didn't fulfil the brief. So that's it.” But instead, they were like, “OK, what other spaces in the city can we use?” I'll be honest, I think this is the first project where I've had so much trust given to me. They would often ask me what I needed, and that's never happened before. To the point where I was very suspicious [laughs]. It's changed the way that I view relationships with collaborators, whether it's a funder or a gallery. Before, I always felt scared to ask for things. I kind of felt a little bit indebted… I think the relationship between galleries, funders and artists can sometimes be not so healthy. Whereas here, I felt like everything was very respectful. I can't go back – now that I've tasted this I can't go back.
Georgina I think it is instinctual, especially in the arts. Everything is so pace-driven and money-driven that care and kindness are completely eradicated from any equation. And like you said, when it does come up, it's like, “Nah, this ain't real.” It's not your fault. It's because of the way the industry is structured, and probably because of your previous experiences and experiences of your peers.
Yemi It has taught me a lot.
Georgina Have you thought about what the legacy or lifecycle of the work might be?
Yemi When I was a student, I was really into this concept of design for disassembly, where a product can be easily dismantled and the materials can be used again. But you need to also have a home for the material. I do have an idea of perhaps putting it into a material library locally, in Dunkerque if possible.
Georgina So it's up to you what happens next. My last question for you is whether anything really magic happened along the way when you were working on this project?
Yemi I'm quite a private person. I like my own space. But for this project there was a point when there were 12 people working on the piece. That was actually magic. When we had a big group of people actually making the work, sometimes we'd be quiet, you wouldn't hear anything, you'd hear just hands working. And then when it came to lifting the work, it was like a dance, we were all in sync.
Georgina A natural choreography almost emulating the water and the wind your work would eventually be by. Thats pretty precious.
Words Georgina Johnson
This roundtable was made for Rubis Mécénat