Using images of disaster and accident in this series of work, I worked to address the human costs involved in living within contemporary technological society. Based on a collection of images of trauma culled from television, newspapers, and the Internet that picture the aftermath of terrorist attacks, bombings, massacres and images of war, I used an elaborate and time consuming process in order to slow the images down. The grid bacame a nexus between the bitmapped images and the hand-crafted ones.

 

I inherited my approach to craft from the traditions of my mother, a Canadian immigrant from a working class Norwegian family. I combine northern traditions of weaving, knitting, and embroidery with skills involved with sewing, pattern making, and screen printing that I have acquired from workshops, how-to manuals, and YouTube videos. I am interested in handcrafts as they pertain to irregularity, inefficiency and as the manifestation of haptic knowledge. The physical rhythms of making are time-consuming, and progressive disease highlights the preciousness of time. As my capabilities decrease, each mark or stitch is cherished as a record of then.

www.michelleforsyth.com