Tangle

Created by Jodie Allinson and Emily Underwood-Lee.
Shown in At a Loss (exhibition) Art Central, Barry, (2023 – 2024)

Tangle is a document of a durational process carried out between January and September 2023.  It is also a vehicle for recalling a 25 year friendship between us, Jodie and Emily,  and the support we have given one another as we move through various losses.  At the point of making Tangle, we both find themselves as the oldest women in our maternal lines. Over the 9 months during which we crocheted together, we each worked on one end of the same object. All the yarn used was collected from charity shops. The anonymous yarn invites us to consider the stories of how it came to be donated – the house clearances following bereavements, the abandoned projects. Crochet is interesting to us, not only because it is a physical means of marking our woven narratives but also, because it enables a rebuilding and remaking in the face of grief, where the left-over yarn can be reinvented as a new object grown out of mutual support and understanding. 

As the crocheted object grew, so did the physical distance between us, yet we remained connected by the yarn throughout.  As we worked together, we materially wove the threads of our own grieving processes with the anonymous losses of the people who have donated yarn to charity shops. Dropped stitches and inconsistencies might mark points at which the conversation becoming particularly absorbing, difficult, or joyous. The material of the installation physically marks time, bodily presence and absence, and conversation. The crocheted object is accompanied by 25 fragments of text, which recall notable moments of grief, support, and friendship.