Exhibition: One of a kind, Utopia, Umeå, Sweden, March 3-13, 2022
It’s no coincidence that the shapes resemble iPhone covers. It’s a reflection on how much time is used reflexively picking one up and repetitively scrolling. Consuming fleeting digital content, at an ever-increasing pace. This was her experiment in deliberately reserving time to create tactile material objects. A conscious reprioritizing of one’s time as a rejection of the attention economy. One hundred instances of creating in defiance of assembly line productivity and rejoicing in inefficiency. In the performance of daily life, this is a colorful reminder that it’s within one’s power to set the pace, insist on the rhythm of the dance. Lotta selected flower petals and rusty nails, fruit skins and crushed roots and brought them to boil. She chose waste yarns and trinkets, collected while traveling or left behind when loved ones passed. Careful to only dye the amount she needed for the current weave, she added the material to the pot and left it to steep. During the time, she sawed out the shape of wood, drilled holes. Checked her brew to witness the surprise of the color the cottons and wools and linens took on. Recorded the results in her sketchbook. Mixed the paint color for the frames, allowed it to dry. Strung the nine strings. Then used the weaving techniques available to the form to see what took shape. The same repetitive process and the discovery in the variation. Each weave is a record of her morning, or afternoon, or late night. They encapsulate small worlds of nostalgia and personal relationships, like a photograph. They are one hundred moments in time, viewed here like sediments in rock. A timeline. A story for those who’ve been shown how to read it. Exhibition text by Rae Mariz