15th January 2025 Arts
LoomeWeight Party
Loomeweight is an interdisciplinary durational performance piece created by Patricia Auchterlonie and Hestor Dart. This project began with building an Iron Age style warp-weighted loom. Our loom is made from foraged materials and hung with hagstones (rocks with a single hole worn by the sea). The loom provides the framework for the creation of a tapestry is woven from ‘trash’ or rejected and broken items (e.g. plastic bags, rope, discarded clothing etc). While working, musical materials are passed between two voices, undergoing micro changes as the project unfolds. These improvised changes involve gradual shifts in rhythm, and melody, as well as experimental vocalisations and other non-sung materials.
Loomeweight is a long-form performance piece which slows down the making process utilising pre-industrial, slow techniques and focuses on micro-changes and irregularities. Through this gentle endurance, loomeweight critiques and questions mass production within late stage capitalism. It also references directly the historical gesture of singing and weaving as a paired pursuit and explores the close relationship between these practises and folk culture / ancient histories. The project highlights the failures inherent in a system which promotes marketability and consumption over the sustainable processes of creating and community building. There is also exploration of the omnipresent theme of ecological collapse through the re-use of thrown away objects.
Loomeweight I has made appearances at: Eavesdropping Festival at Cafe Oto, Starptelpa Festical in Riga, Nozstock Festival, hcmf//, the Bonnington Cafe and at the legendary Helgi’s Bar with experimental folk artists Milkweed. Keep an eye out for more loome(s) to come!
