About

[terror]tory is an assemblage of processes which develop portraits of fluid identity; identities which are unravelling and becoming.

The processes start with the filleting of garments. The garments are metaphors for an ‘inherited/taught/socialized’ identity; a metric identity, identities which belong to spaces of categories. Filleting a garment liberates the fabric [material/matter in an alchemical sense, and psychologically/emotionally as in ’what’s the matter?’] from the seams [maps of the territory]. The identity is de-territorialised, ready for a nomadic existence.

The liberated fabric is cut in such way as to create a continuous thread/yarn. Yarn making investigates identity as a narrative; the stories which are told and retold, the routine habits which coagulate into identity. The yarn is knitted facilitating emergent typological forms, planes and shapes, developing in relationship to the body. The material of identity becomes something which can be moulded, folded, pleated, gathered, undone, redone, stretched.

These processes are engaged with individually and socially. Socially others provoke, draw awareness to, confront, affirm and reflect aspects of my identity which I might be unaware of, would like to change, would like to eliminate, and would like to acquire. The performance embodies this by the sharing of processes; unravelling, knitting, cutting and the swapping/gifting of yarn [story/conversation]. 

The roots of [Terror]tory can be found here: http://marksknittingblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/uima-mask-competition.html