Jennifer West, Orange Haze Film Quilt, (2023). 35 and 70mm filmstrips, inkjet print on clear film, ink, dyes, volcanic ash hand-made dye, permanent marker, moth wing, thread, plexiglass. 134 x 84cm. © and courtesy the artist.

Interlaced: Animation and Textiles

ARTISTS:
Faig Ahmed (Azerbaijan), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (UK), Jon Michael Corbett (Canada), Kelly Egan (Canada), Sione Faletau (Aotearoa, Tonga), Footprints Studio (UK), Sabrina Gschwandtner (USA), Marguerite Harris (France), Len Lye (Aotearoa), Aubrey Longley-Cook (USA), Jodie Mack (USA), Huw Messie (USA), Lindsay McIntyre (Canada), Miracle de Mille (France), Ng’endo Mukii (USA), Kate Nartker (USA), Ishu Patel (Canada), Pathé Studio (UK), Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof (Canada), Harry Smith (USA), Caitlin Thompson (Canada), Vaimaila Urale (Aotearoa, Samoa), Jennifer West (USA), Jordan Wong (USA), Shaheer Zazai (Canada), Studio Zeitguised (Germany)

installation images of of the exhibition Interlaced: Animation and Textiles at the Len Lye Centre, 2024. Photographs by Sam Hartnett.
installation images of of the exhibition Interlaced: Animation and Textiles at the Len Lye Centre, 2024. Photographs by Sam Hartnett.
installation images of of the exhibition Interlaced: Animation and Textiles at the Len Lye Centre, 2024. Photographs by Sam Hartnett.
installation images of of the exhibition Interlaced: Animation and Textiles at the Len Lye Centre, 2024. Photographs by Sam Hartnett.
installation images of of the exhibition Interlaced: Animation and Textiles at the Len Lye Centre, 2024. Photographs by Sam Hartnett.
installation images of of the exhibition Interlaced: Animation and Textiles at the Len Lye Centre, 2024. Photographs by Sam Hartnett.

The work of renown experimental filmmaker Len Lye (1901-1980) plays an important connective role in the exhibition. Interlaced makes a compelling case for the influence of Pacific tapa design and British textile production on Lye’s innovative animation techniques. Nesting Len Lye’s animated films in a broader field of analogue and digital media, Interlaced explores the enduring capacity of textile forms to make visible animating forces and to reanimate intergenerational cultural memory.

Frames from Len Lye’s Kaleidoscope (1935) and Color Cry (1953). Film prints courtesy the Ngā Taonga film archive.
Frames from Len Lye’s Kaleidoscope (1935) and Color Cry (1953). Film prints courtesy the Ngā Taonga film archive.
Frames from Len Lye’s Kaleidoscope (1935) and Color Cry (1953). Film prints courtesy the Ngā Taonga film archive.
Frames from Len Lye’s Kaleidoscope (1935) and Color Cry (1953). Film prints courtesy the Ngā Taonga film archive.

Exploring the reciprocal connections between animation and textiles, Interlaced introduces two newly commissioned works by Aotearoa artists engaging with Moana (Pacific Ocean) textile traditions: Vaimaila Urale and Sione Faletau.

Vaimaila Urale’s O Le Sami Po Uliuli (2024) expands Urale’s established practice of using a selective set of ASCII characters found on all computer keyboards to compose intricate patterns that encode Samoan symbolism of tattooing and siapo (barkcloth) design, displaying a coordinated multiplicity of 180 sovereign cloth tiles.The composition submerges visitors underwater to experience the recurring patterns of migration and predation that affect the Moana.

Sione Faletau’s Peau Lalava o Moana – The Moana that Binds Us (2024) transforms the Len Lye Centre’s architectural concrete curves into a digitally animated weave that translates the soundwaves of the Moana (Pacific Ocean) – recorded near the gallery – into rhythmic digital patterns informed by kupesi (pattern designs) that provide a tangible lineage entwining the Tongan diaspora across geographic and cultural borders. Faletau binds together visual and sonic perception with the space of the gallery and its situated place within the Moana.