Material Thinking

Pink Mexico

The artwork is a pipe cleaner drop/nest/space, made in the national colour of Mexico and installed under a pedestrian bridge in Maravatio, Mexico. This is one in a series of nests made in various locations during Grobler’s travels, including Soloturn (Switzerland), Johannesburg (South Africa) and New Delhi (India). Each time, the colour is selected in response to the quality of the specific place.

No more worlds to conquer

No more worlds to conquer is made from woven ropes typically used in the mining industry. The mining industry is an important source of employment and capital for South Africa. At the same time, some companies are charged with exploitive practices of labour and the environment. Grobler's installation comments on this complex web.

Cat Tail

This is a performance still from Cat Tail, 2015, in Maravatio, Mexico.

The artist is weaving with cat tail, a now invasive species that is taking over bodies of water. Its growth had previously been kept in check when it was used to weave baskets. Today the local populace prefers to use plastic bags instead. Grobler is also dressed in the clothes worn by Quinceañera, a local folklore figure, so her artwork also alludes to the fairy tales - of Mexico and elsewhere in the world - of a girl in distress having to sew/weave/labour to redeem/save herself.

The "jellyfish" goes on to inspire new work.

Flotsam

The melting softness of the mohair jellyfish is transformed into hard edges of mosaic, through pixellation of the image, in Flotsam.

other new artistic possibilities

Draping the "jellyfish" over found mannequin legs changes its context, repositions it and in this way opens up other new possibilities ...

a traumatized landscape

Before describing the next work, it is important to explain that a great fire burned for weeks through thousands of hectares of nature reserve lying between Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope the year before the work was made. Burnt indigenous plants, proteas and fynbos left blackened carcasses. Burning may well be a natural cycle for the plants, generating new life, but many animals were injured or killed.

The traumatised landscape and the natural protective qualities of mohair came together in Liza crocheting mohair around the scorched protea stems. The tenderness of the resulting object is strangely compelling.

Draw

The use of pristine white yarn was intentional, and Liza remarked how the charcoal surface of the sticks came to rub or draw on the yarn. It led to Liza wanting to use them to draw with as part of a performance work - as she noted on her studio wall with the word "draw" on her studio wall.

Chrysalis

Putting her sketches and thinking together, Liza makes a nest from crochet mohair and a geo-textile (see off-cuts). In it is nestled a musician.

Using mohair's qualities to think about architecture

John Andrews, architect, starts with an umbrella stripped of its cloth covering. It serves as a frame to which he weaves mohair. This weaving reflects the weaving of thoughts in his mind...

...among his thoughts, he is asking himself how can mohair be light and strong at the same time, and can this help make architecture robust yet light at the same time?

Fashion designer Amy Cox merges the clothing of the body with the "clothing" of space to ask an abstract question. Can clothing space with something like mohair help the visually impaired know where they are by changing the air's "feel"?

Play and creativity

Adults, like children, need to play in order to discover and find creative joy. Here, a participant plays with mohair by combining it with incongruous materials such as wire fencing and thorn branches.

Perhaps it is the mixing of the rough and sharp with the mohair that reminds us not to take the softness of mohair for granted. Besides the hair itself, its oil or lanolin also lends itself as a softening agent - this is why angora goat farmers have surprisingly soft hands!

This may have led to the idea of using both the lanolin and the mohair to make an all-encompassing spa experience.

Find out more about the mohair iteration via this outcome book, please click the image to view. The book is also available for download from our website.

Social Fabric is a not-for-profit project. We would like to thank the DOEN Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Fashion Department, this iteration's tertiary partner.

Contact us at: SocialFabricSA@gmail.com