tender knots

'tender knots' is a multimedia project, incorporating textile work, photography, dance, live performance and writing. Broadly put, it is an exploration of relational entanglements and the ways they feel – from the contortions of the new mother's body as she bends herself to her child, to the ritualised feminism enacted by the knots of the witches' ladder. 

Throughout the project, I am interested in knots: how they might be made in different contexts , such as the two mentioned above, but also within a kink context with the Japanese art of shibari, and what kinds of embodiment they suggest – particularly with regards women's emotional and domestic labour. I’m also interested in queer forms of commitment – particularly non-monogamous ones. What does it mean to ‘tie the knot’ in these contexts?

The project is particularly informed by the psychological dialogue 'Knots' by R.D Laing, Sara Ahmed’s work on queer (dis)orientations – which I work in to my own lived experiences of dyspraxia – Karen Barad’s language of entanglements, and the textural queer feminisms of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, especially her text 'Touching Feeling'.

Research and development on this project has been funded, so far, by Curator Space and CVAN East Midlands. A new phase of this project, hosting spaces for queer and trans communities to explore relational embodiment, non-linear and disparate forms of connection-making, and somatic tools for arts-activism, was piloted at the Bidston Observatory in May, 2024 and is currently under further development with Creative Rebel CIC.