ARTISTS TALKING

Alinah Azadeh and Willow Winston

Origin Interactive: Crafting Space is the first ever-interactive commission by
the Crafts Council for Origin: the London Craft Fair. This live textile installation invites visitors to Origin to engage in the hands-on writing and weaving of a large-scale circular structure. The intention is to transform visitor’s perceptions of what it means to be engaged in craft. The content of the work is informed by ideas around making, gift and exchange and the Middle Eastern practice of Moshaereh (communal poetry reciting).

Visitors may choose from themes posted within the space which will ask
them to consider the meaning and value of making, giving, receiving and
collecting in a new and intriguing context. They will then write or draw their
responses onto ribbon. The weaving of one of the 5,000 sheer ribbons
required to cover the circular steel mesh structure will give individual
visitors the opportunity to transform the bare bones of an existing piece of
craft into a stunning object of collective creativity.

The aim of the piece is to articulate a process of reflection and dialogue
which participants are drawn into, thus deepening their experience of the
Fair. It will provide a lively, daily critical context to the wider event.
Conceived by artist Alinah Azadeh, the textile structure was designed in
collaboration with sculptor Willow Winston. The project is produced in association with the Crafts Council and is also supported by The Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles (Goldsmiths University).

7-19 October 2008 (CLOSED: Monday 13 Oct 2008)
Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
www.craftscouncil.org.uk/origin
020 7806 2510

Alinah Azadeh

Alinah Azadeh is a British-Iranian artist who uses textiles, media and space
to create artworks that offer audiences moments of self-reflection and
emotional connection with each other. She has an MA in Media Arts Practice
at Westminster University (2001) and is currently on a year of artistic R+D
(funded by Arts Council, England) to develop her work.

The Loom Project (2005) was her first large-scale live work, involving mass
participation in the computer-mediated weaving of a textile. It highlighted
human relationships to life and loss by asking participants to contribute
written emotional information - dates, places, people, and thoughts - to the
textile pattern itself. The project was supported by New Work Network and
Arts Council, England and the resulting weave was exhibited in 2007 at The
Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles, Goldsmiths
University, London who are also supporting her research.

Read Ainah's blog here.

Willow Winston

Willow Winston studied B.A. Painting and Postgraduate Printmaking,
winning the Stowells Trophy, at The Central School in the 1970s. Among
collections of her work are the V & A and Ben Uri Museum of Jewish Art.
She was awarded a Fellowship at the Virginia Center of Creative Arts in
2003 and created a major public sculpture for John Laing plc in 2004.
Alongside large sculpture she crafts smaller book art, creating unique
structures in this field.