Salts Mill
Cloth & Memory 2
Cloth and Memory {2} is a site-specific exhibition located in the UNESCO World Heritage Site: Salts Mill, Saltaire Yorkshire UK, which is also an anchor point in the European Route of Industrial Heritage. The exhibition features 23 artists drawn from a UK and international cohort and runs from August 18th to November 3rd 2013.
It builds on knowledge gained in our first exhibition, however it is a very different experience. It takes place in the original Spinning Room (known as The Lobby), which at 168m x 16m, when first built was thought to be the largest industrial room in the world. Apart from a new roof, it has not been restored or refurbished, and is not normally open to the public. The extraordinary internal architecture with its peeling walls and floors still retain the marks and smells of its original use.
An international group of artists were invited to visit Salts in order to propose work as a response to the site. From these proposals 23 artists were selected: 14 from the UK, 7 from Japan, 1 from Germany, 1 from Norway, representing emerging, early career and established artists. All the work engages with the palpable history of place that is evident at Salts Mill and The Lobby in particular, and range from large scale interventions in space to highly intimate placings within the fabric of the building.
Cloth and Memory {2} uses that universal familiarity with cloth to connect audience, place and artist within this heritage building in the heart of an area central to textile production during the industrial revolution and, by so doing, extend contemporary practice in the field.
Professor of Textile Culture, University for the Creative Arts
www.clothandmemory.com
Originally the spinning room contained 16, 380 cap spindles for spinning yarn. Raw alpaca fleece, imported from Peru, arrived at the top of the building and was processed down through the building to emerge as finished cloth at the bottom.
In its heyday, Salts Mill manufactured over 30,000 yards or 18 miles of alpaca cloth per day. That's nearly 5,600 miles per year (enough to reach all the way back to Peru as the crow flies).
At its peak, Salts Mill employed 4,000 people using the most modern technology of the day.
I will be posting photos of all the different works over the next few days, so stay tuned.
