Data Lace is a large-scale contemporary lace installation that explores how materials might embody place through the making of a textile. Upcycled shredded office documents are transformed from a waste material into a stitched ethereal lace work. The research underpinning the installation explores unconventional approaches to traditional lace making. It references historical embroidered laces known as punto en aire (stitches in the air) to demonstrate how making knowledges move between generations. Traditionally lace could be read as a place marker and came to represent the family and region where it was made through the materials and patterns employed to make it. How can new notions of punto en aire be re-imagined as a modern-day place marker? The aim is to create original work that reflects to the viewer, a recognition of their environment in a new light. Projects are framed around a dynamic, mobile engagement in a selected site. A series of walking, recording and making expeditions stop, notice, document, collect and transform material waste in a workplace into an unexpected expression of a contemporary (p)lace marker.
Data Lace was exhibited in UTS Library for Sydney Craft week in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, it was on display at the ‘State of Fashion: Searching for the New Luxury’ Fashion Colloquium exhibition in Arnhem, the Netherlands.
