Suspension

An immersive archive of quarantine, finger crocheted in black paracord
6,000 feet of nylon rope
70” w x 112” h, depth variable
2020

The inception for this piece began when I came into my first quarantine in March 2020. I packed 6,000 feet of black parachute cord made of nylon to take with me. I tried to treat the whole experience of quarantine as if it were a project and task myself with crocheting a calendar for the time, trusting a natural end point through discomfort and uncertainty.

I find comfort in the simplicity of parameters. The quarantine of a self-contained time and space was nothing if not a new set of parameters to abide. I had a limited amount of a single material that was divided into 500-foot bundles. I felt keenly aware of the arbitrary nature of days, weeks, and months when one simply flowed into the next, inviting the existential questioning of what is the significance of “6 p.m.” or “Monday” when all delineations had broken down and come to a halt?

I finger crocheted this piece, choosing this repetitive gesture that bypassed an external tool so I could make direct contact to the material with my body in one continuous line. No hardware, no glue, nothing but my own hand, unmediated. I realize now there was a desire for something direct when so many of our forms of communication during this time were mediated. Haptic connection became more vital than ever.

 

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Photographs by Valentin Gienger