Yiddishland Pavilion Portfolio
Shore Weavings (2024)
Handspun wool, shore plants, beach materials
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Shore Weavings brings together traditional making processes with discarded and foraged materials found on location such as beach grasses and shore litter, reflecting on the role of these often overlooked materials, and their importance for the people who traditionally lived on the west coast of Scotland. The weavings are photographed in situ, back on the beaches where they were found, symbolising the importance of the relationship between material and place.
Was I Here? (2022)
Gathered wool scraps
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Was I Here? documents the experience of visiting sites of Holocaust memory in Poland, and the temporality of passing through places of such immensity in quick succession. Traditional Polish doilies were crocheted from charts found in local Polish-language magazines. Each one was finished as far as they could be within the length of time of a bus ride between various sites on a Jewish roots tour, and was left at that place, unfinished. These wool scraps remain, a testimony to the act of memory and memorial, documenting the experience of visiting the camps, ghettos and cemeteries, as well as the experience of participating in this sort of intensive programme.
Local Tea Shop (2023)
Community project​
Local Tea Shop was a series of community engagement projects where I gathered and prepared herbal teas from various plants located around the Southside of Glasgow. I then returned to the site where those specific plants were foraged, and served the tea to community members, as a means to engage in conversation and communal learning about the plants and natural abundance that are regularly overlooked in our neighbourhoods.
Bombay Aesthetic (2019)
Handdyed wool, dyed using Hindu ritual pigments​
While living in India, I encountered the many ritual uses of colour used in Hinduism. In India, colour signifies life. People wear bright colours to funerals, and married women line their hair partings with red to symbolise vitality, not to mention religious festivals like Holi and Diwali. I collected these ritual pigments from vendors around Mumbai and used them to dye wool, which was then knit into these fabrics, celebrating this deep cultural connection to colour and traditional hand craft methods.
Monument to the Sheep that Died on the Hills Above Lochwinnoch (2021)
Gathered wool, spun and knit​
This project, accompanied by a piece of writing, explores the deep relationship between material and place. It comprises a knit hap, a traditional Scottish blanket design, made out of handspun yarn which was gathered from the remains of a sheep which had died on the hillside over the winter. I returned to the site several times throughout the process, knitting the hap in situ, creating a relationship between the land, the artist, the material, and the finished product. This piece was featured in the Shmita Project Exhibition at the Sabes Center in Minneapolis in 2023.
Torah B'Teva (ongoing since 2023)
Community project
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Torah B'Teva (also known just as Teva) is an ongoing community development project, which creates opportunities for nature-based and experiential Jewish learning and community. It explores the land, plants and traditional crafts and skills of Scotland, while being firmly rooted in Jewish ritual and tradition. Through regular in-person gatherings, taking place across Scotland, participants are invited to reimagine the idea of a Scottish-Jewish identity firmly rooted in Jewish festivals and rituals, as well as traditional Scottish land-based skills like foraging, weaving, coppicing and more. This photo is from a recent Tu B'Shvat Seder focussing on the traditional Celtic festival of Imbolc, as well as celebrating locally foraged plants.
