A Stitch in Time

For A Stitch in Time, textile patterns found in Chengdu, ranging from the highly celebrated and revered designs in the Sichuan Museum to cheap mass-produced textiles found in stalls and shops  have been deconstructed and reassembled to create an immense pattern, which constantly mutates. The designs have been ‘mashed’ together with no regard to the cultural hierarchy and signification of the designs, creating an uncomfortable democracy of patterns together with their associated meanings. This image has been divided into 100 tiles, each an independent work, with mutually different transitions of patterns. Participants needed to negotiate with each other to assemble the work without knowing the final pattern. Commissioned by MOCA & The British Council, with support from Arts Council England.