The slow research in slowness

Abstract

The project “Voltando ao assunto” seeks to understand the importance of slowness, in rhythms and temporalities of artistic work, with focus on the textile language, through arts-based research. Slowness is outlined as a persistent and continuous process, with moments of pause and repeated actions that allow us to reach a state of concentration and abstraction. In the making we can find the necessary silence for reflection and interiority, in a time of non-decision, and of mechanical actions repeated cyclically, marked by rests that allow us to nourish the making itself, in a slow and soothing pace. This slow rhythm research is a form of resistance to a hastened time, imposed and appraised in contemporaneity, a divergence that interests us as researchers and artists. We seek slowness marks in materiality and its origins, in manual and sensorial work, in different disciplinary fields of artistic practice. In particular, we were interested in ways of creating that live on the margin between arts and crafts, that enhances a private, intimate, day-to-day expertise, that is established on the disciplinary fringe. Is there slowness in material? Will the relationship between the natural fibber, the time of growth, the harvesting, the herding, the plant growth, have any relation to art creation pulse? What are the processes intrinsically tied to textile language that imply a bodily involvement or an emotional commitment? Inweaving, tapestry, embroidery, is slowness an idiosyncrasy? Does manual textile manufacturing have specific and artistic characteristics? Is there a different artistic creation when dealing with textiles? Is textile a discipline field, or a skill that enables artistic expression? Is there textile art? How do women explore textiles as a means of expression? What symbologies are concealed in textile? These are various questions that we want to pursue through the practice of textiles itself. We want to unveil slowness by looking at other practices and rehearsing possibilities through the narrative of slow and manual work, presenting the research exploring textile materials and processes.