Souzou - "From fluffy embroidery to found materials"

Some hands-on sessions (till 15 June) at the Wellcome in conjunction with the exhibition of outsider art from Japan - Souzou (showing till 30 June). Each session is two hours long and the room accommodates about 30 people - see here for details.

Artists in the exhibition served as inspiration, and the main instruction was to use the materials and not edit your work - in other words, play. I found this chart interesting - where does "play" fall on the challenge level scale? Is playing a skill? -

Gathering materials

Getting started - I found the ribbon on the floor and was planning [is planning play?]
to work on the idea of "the wrong kind of leaves on the line"

Once the leaves were on the line  it was looking very "edited"
so I started adding more of the background round the edges
- seeing what would happen -
that felt more in the spirit of things

At the end of the session - freed up - an
unexpected result,  a surprise outcome

The tutor, Anna Dumitriu, uses bacteria and robots in her own work. For example, her "Normal Flora" project is based on cultures of bacteria found on chairs and in beds - yes, bacteria are everywhere - for instance, there are more bacteria on your fingertip than there are people on earth! Less than 1% of bacteria are harmful to us, and many are actually beneficial.

Artists in the exhibition using fabric and/or thread include Yumiko Kawai, Satoshi Morita, Toshiko Yananishi, Takahiro Shimoda, Norie Shukumatani, Sakiko Kono, Shoichi Koga, and the ceramics of Shinichi Sawada and detailed drawings of Norimitsu Kokubo are also relevant.

Yumiko Kawai stitches circles (image from here)

Satoshi Morita uses discarded thread ends (image from here)

Embroidered chocolate cake by Norie Shukumatani (from here)