Mending the Tutu

Making the tutu involved a process of activity that metaphorically echoed the ‘repetitive circular motion’ that the participants used to describe the process of production at Perry Street Mill. The identity of the bobbinet tulle industry was performed in the construction of this piece, where fifty-four metres of tissue paper frills were wound round and round the circumference of the skirt. The cylindrical motion of making was repeated time and time again. Here the spiral is used as a formal device of repetition. The process that involved winding and winding and stitching and then more winding and stitching seemed relentless, labour-intensive and repetitive. The process was repeated until the allocated length of frill was consumed in the making of the skirt. By walking round the tutu, a story is told in the present, about the process of production through the sense-based experience of the circular motion.

Mending the Tutu (detail)
Tissue paper, wax, graphite, thread, tulle
Size 1m diameter

The long history of mending, an elemental feature of the community at Chard, is expressed in the piece. Hand stitches hold the frills in place and mark the repairs that have been made to the fragile tissue paper from which the skirt is made. Wax dipped threads surface from the middle of the skirt, shimmering dully with remnants of graphite dust, dirty and stained - as if dragged through the oily puddles on the floor at Perry Street Mill. The tactile components of the skirt invite a response, if only to contemplate what might be hidden in-between the layers of the frills.

Mending the Tutu (detail)
Tissue paper, wax, graphite, thread, tulle
Size 1m diameter

Mending the Tutu (detail)
Tissue paper, wax, graphite, thread, tulle
Size 1m diameter

The women in the mending room at Perry Street Mill participated by writing anecdotes about mending onto sheets of tissue that were incorporated into the making of the skirt. Quotes selected from the participants' interviews were also included to create a piece of work that communicated a sense of place using ethnographic data. Graphite was used to inscribe the fragmented narrative onto the skirt of the tutu because it was a material that had been used historically in the production of the tulle.

Mending the Tutu (detail)
Tissue paper, wax, graphite, thread, tulle
Size 1m diameter

This interpretation of place was produced in relation to new forms of evidence relevant to the personal experiences of the employees and my re-interpretation and re-presentation in relation to what was expressed. The tutu is an exploration of the working environment at Perry Street Mill, past and present and the habitual performances of the employees in their daily working lives.