Madeleine Hicks

My work emerged from an attempt to communicate personal experiences with dissociation. This began with video performances. Within these performances I have a ‘routine’ I am following – mundane tasks such as removing a jumper, scrubbing my hands. These tasks were filmed and re-performed, consequently working in tandem with myself.

The more layers of performances, the more the figures move out of sync with themselves. The current performer is constantly chasing a moment that has already elapsed.

Chasing the present is impossible, we exist within the delay – if only by the blink of an eye.

The act of weaving is viewed as a performative act. Re-conceptualising the loom as less of a machine, and more of a collaborator. By taking stills from the performances and inserting them into the tapestry, another layer is formed. Another delayed reality. Cyclical and self feeding.

The completed tapestry holds my performance within another, and writes the story of them into the wefts.

The performance videos are then projected into expanses of warp threads, embedding themselves further into the fabric. Contrasting the binary with the temporal.

Every weft carries intention, each movement enacted on the loom becomes a delegated performance. The work absorbs itself, yet remains unending and extending. In this way my process is not only a practical means serving an outcome, but an artistic one.