Weaving what’s washed up

Wednesday 27 August 2014

It’s often squelchy and a bit smelly but last weekend two experts were teaching Islanders to plait, knot, weave and knit the stuff that has been washed up on our beaches and turn it into a work of art.

The Jersey Arts Trust had a busy week collecting all the materials needed for their Seaweed Weaving laboratories which were run by two International artists.

Fritz Stolberg and Nissa Nishikawa ran the free labs at Archirondel and Victoria Tower as a bit of an experiment - they’ve never actually tried weaving seaweed before!

Nissa said: “I work a lot with bison hair – the buffalos from the prairies in Alberta - which I’ve used to make structures and I’ve worked with a lot of other raw materials.”

The two artists were also helping Islanders create mineral and crystal shapes using materials like wire, coloured plastic and jesmonite and the artwork will feature in a film the two artists will begin filming on the Island next month called “From This World To That Which Is To Come” which will star some members of the Island’s Special Gymnastics team.

Nissa said: “It’s about how man converses with nature on multiple levels, we’re creating a very loose narrative about the idea of a civilization lost and what we do to create a new one.

“It’s a direct response to working with a raw material – it’s very site specific, weaving into the history of Jersey, complementing my work - building installations which inevitably decays into the earth again and which also brings in the community.”