Liv Enqvist
‘Common Thread’
I started embroidering in 2018 when I was travelling and didn’t have a set workspace. Embroidery was easy to fold, possible to do anywhere and not too fragile. I soon discovered I enjoyed both the meditative quality and tactile aspects of this practice. I have always loved language and I have found a lot of inspiration in poetry, prayers and music. I was trying to understand what makes you feel at home? what is belonging? Having lived abroad for most of my life in Japan, France, Italy and the UK, this is an ongoing exploration for me.
Today, when our society feels separated by ever growing divides, I am thinking a lot about what unites us as a community and connects us as humans. What is our common thread? What binds us together? Both to each other and our families in the present and through time to our ancestors.
Freehand embroidery can also be a metaphor for life. One stitch at a time the image emerges. It takes time and presence to see the patterns unfurl, it’s a slow but beautiful process. I am influenced too by the symbolism of a thread. A single thread is thin yet strong because of the many fibres that are intertwined, each lending its strength to the whole. Similarly, a community is stronger through diversity and unity.
Once the embroidering was completed, I took the pieces to be photographed outside. Exposing the work to the elements, wherever I happened to be. It became a collaboration with the landscape in that very moment. I love the transparent property of the fabric because it creates something unexpected and spontaneous. Through taking something with domestic connotations outdoors, Embroidery - a domestic activity – is brought outside and exposed to the sun, wind and water where it becomes a part of the surroundings, blurring the man made and the natural. The pieces are as much about the meditative process of embroidering as the artwork itself, the mixing of fast and slow ways of capturing an idea.
- Liv Enqvist