The Yard
A demonstration and talk by textile artist Johanna Bramble who lives and works in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, preserving ancestral weaving traditions. She also Talks about weaving as a metaphor.
"Moulting.... Between ritual and reconnection with the living, it is the reconciliation with my essence.
The intimate, sacred revelation of traditional manjak weaving, where the anchoring of the threads to the ground brings forth the woven word.
Getting closer to her fundamentals and taming her inner being a little more to weave her weft, her fabrics, continuously. Her textile constellation defines the space in which her sensitivity is clearly inscribed.
The land on which each person is born becomes the land of their ancestors. But it happens that one day we move from this land to another and we are surprised by the strong impression that our ancestors seem to be everywhere; both the constellation of the new space, the arrangement of the elements that make it up, the air, the odours, the perfumes, seem to be similar to the earth of their origin. We no longer feel lost or disoriented.
The phenomenon sows within itself the seeds of regeneration, breathes the force of life. It awakens the senses and puts creative aspirations within reach.
In herself, through her father, the French and English Caribbean and its history meet: Montserrat, Dominica and Guadeloupe and through her mother, Paris and the French metropolis take another place.
But her body felt the fibre of the world, the fibre of the African continent and decided to follow the thread of this fibre to settle in Dakar, Senegal. The more she weaves, the more the fabric that is formed expands, bringing the countries closer together.
Over time, she installs the warp of thread in several places. She undertakes journeys, some of which take her to the heart of her private life.
In these places she receives strong impressions, these lands, new, never trodden, are not foreign to her. The memory and the history" From "With every fibre of (herself) being (Raw Material Company, DK)