Studiovisit Atelier Lamine Diouf
Antwerp-based artist and weaver Lamine Diouf opened up his atelier for our first Crafting Futures Textile Wanders Session. The project is aimed at grouping Belgium-based diasporic craftspeople, artists and peers to visit different locations in Flanders in order to build bridges between individual practices and institutions. The main goal and research question is to investigate, how, as a newcomer or migrant in Belgium, we can sustain a creative practice.
Lamine Diouf’s atelier is located in Archipel, a creative hub in Antwerp proposing atelier spaces for artists, creatives and researchers. Lamine’s atelier holds several weaving looms for his different projects which he kindly prepared for us to weave and experiment with. This session was conceived as a short introduction to weaving, showing the different steps (from winding the warp, weaving, dressing the loom until removing the fabric from the loom).
Sakiori
Diouf uses a Japanese technique called Sakiori (meaning to shred and to weave) which is a creative and sustainable way to upcycle ancient textiles. A textile, usually cotton or linen, is shredded for creating a new cloth. Diouf divided us in 5 different groups, one group winding the wrap, the second creating the bundle of shredded textiles, and three groups weaving on looms.
The multicultural group was composed of crafters as well as representatives from NGOs in creative sectors in Flanders, such as Mwinda Kitoko, Doek, Weave Community and Bildy. During the session, we also had the chance to discuss Diouf’s creative philosophy, his collaboration with Antwerp-based designer Jan Jan Van Essche, who inspired him to start weaving on a loom. Diouf also shared how his observations in Senegal shaped his apprenticeship in weaving, which was autodidact. Diouf’s practice ‘found him’ rather than the opposite.
Multidisciplinary trajectory
He explained how his practice already combined different disciplines like art, music and performance and how travelling made him appreciate and respect the value of craftsmanship more, like in Japan where craft is highly valued. His observations of weavers in the streets of Dakar shaped his technique while also enriching it with literature on African textiles and the proximity of other creatives with influences from all over the world.
Subsequently, we engaged in a conversation with Diouf and Nyanchama Okemwa, a social worker, activist, painter, and researcher, who asked Diouf about the spiritual aspect of his practice. Diouf equally explained how he learned to weave in Belgium where it became an essential part of his life. His current work in textiles holds transnational cultural aspects which bring him an international clientele.
A pen and a book
This encounter was an immersion into Diouf’s work and a chance to discover his creative works with textiles, upcycling techniques and his love for poetry, theatre and music.
When he weaves, Diouf needs ‘a pen and a book’, from his ‘scientific-musical approach’ the loom creates an entanglement of geometrical patterns each containing their own cultural traces. Diouf himself compares it to the herringbone pattern which he sees as transnational as well as reminding him of the structure and architecture of West-African villages.
At the end of the workshop we had 30 minutes left to finish weaving the three textiles Diouf had prepared. Each participant worked on all three pieces, turning them into a symbol of the symbiosis of our work. While some had never woven a textile before; others were learners or advanced practitioners. At the end of the day the group decided not to cut and divide the textiles individually but rather to keep them together, as a future artefact that can act as a collective memory, symbol or object in future Textile Wanders activities.
Textile Wander Workshop – Lamine Diouf’s atelier
21th September, Archipel, Antwerp
Organised by Pierre-Antoine Vettorello