Clip of Hidden - an installation of three touch-to-sound interactive weavings, co-created with women from English Plus Art group run by Liz through Arts Release.
Displayed in Norwich Cathedral during Refugee Week.
Hidden is a weaving and audio installation co-created with a group of women from refugee, asylum seeker and migrant backgrounds settling in Norwich, UK. It explores cultural memories of home and experriences of being unseen while living in a new country with limited language skills.
The women shared their experiences by responding to a writing prompt evoking happy sensory memories of where they grew up and ways that they feel hidden owing to the inability to express themselves or cultural differences. They also shared something that would help them to no longer feel ‘hidden’. Their voices were recorded in their own language with English translations. The women also contributed sounds for the artwork’s audio to represent their home country. Liz as facilitating artist created compositions from the recordings, which are triggered through touching the small woven buttons on the textile panels.
Using reclaimed wool, beads and embroidery thread, the women created circular weavings, expressions of completeness and continuity. They were taught how to make ‘Dorset buttons’, which were transformed into touch-sensors through incorporating conductive thread and connection to custom hardware and software of a TactileAudio microcontroller. .In creating the buttons, the women engaged in a traditional English craft while bringing their aesthetic and cultural sensibilities from Nigeria, Ukraine, China, Hong Kong, Eritrea, Sao Tome and Brazil.
Visitors listen to the women’s stories by touching the conductive thread on the twelve small buttons.
For a visitor engaging with the artwork, touching and listening becomes an act of attention, welcome and care.