Fils a Fils

2019

Installation, exhibition views

“Fils a Fils is a transmission exercise with triple vocation: between know-how, gaze and words a new language is born and echoes our deep humanity. It is a metaphor about oral, written and tactile transmission. It is about reinventing a humanity.” (J.B.)

The work has been created in the framework of the artistic research and exchange project Seeds For Future Memories, a cooperation between the artist residencies Thread in Sinthian, Senegal and Villa Romana in Florence, Italy, in 2018.

www.seedsforfuturememories.com

colonial heritage, memory, history, oral history, textile

Johanna Bramble

Johanna Bramble, born in Paris in 1976, is a textile artist and designer who has been living in Dakar, Senegal for more than ten years. Drawn to Senegal by the country’s rich expertise in weaving and fabric, she opened a weaving workshop in Dakar and now employs four Senegalese weavers. The special feature of Senegalese weaving is a loom that requires the presence of two people, a weaver and an assistant. The rhythm of weaving produced by the coordination between the two – almost like a dance – is an integral aspect of the creation process, enabling complex and intrinsic pattern and color variations. Johanna Bramble’s commercial textile designs employ not only these native techniques but also symbolic geometric patterns, and oscillate between the country’s rich textile culture and modern interpretations. Constant evolution, metamorphosis and transformation are key elements of her artistic works. Incorporating new materials (from metal to fiber optics) into the traditional weaving universe expands the limits of hand weaving while also sparking new insights into the textile heritage.

Fils a Fils