OUR PROJECT
   Verdensveven/Weave World Wide - 2008-2014

Winter 2009 our project, Verdensveven/Weave World Wide, started. It will last for five years and consists of three parts: Exhibition, Workshops and website.

EXHIBITIONS
We intend to have at least one exhibition each year for five years. In 2009 we had two shows, the first one at Røros in Winter, and the second one i Namsos in summer.
In spring 2010 our third exhibition took place at Stiklestad, one of the most historical places in Norway. King Olav was killed there in a battle in 1030. Next gallery for us to exhibit in, was Galleri Hans which is next door to the Hannah Ryggen Museum at Brekstad. The opening took place on april the 3rd 2011. The exhibition will be on until the end of june.

Summer 2012 we are going to Skogmuseet Elverum. After that we hope to have a major exhibition in Trondheim, but no arrangements are made for that yet.

WORKSHOPS (and our 55 x 55 tapestries - imprints of the present)
Ahead of each exhibition a workshop for ARAKNE's members is arranged. The purpose for these workshops is to make prepatory work for a series of four tapestries sized 55 cm x 55 cm. Each new ARAKNE exhibition presents a new series.
The four small tapestries are mounted, one by one, separately on the wall, in a group. To support the idea behind the small tapestries, a written statement is presented next to the woven piece. Previous series are also exibited.

View pictures

We may have a common theme for the workshop, or each one of us does in forehand choose an issue to concentrate upon. The chosen subjects are presented and discussed. This leads to associations and ideas that may be valuable feedback when designing our 55 x 55 tapestries. At the first and the second workshop we worked with collage and mixed techniques on paper.

The third workshop, which took place 27- 28 of august 2010, was done without scraps and collage. We were to prepare for our exhibition in Galleri Hans at Brekstad, a small town across the Trondheim Fjord, where the tapestry artist Hannah Ryggen spent most of her life. The name of the gallery, Galleri Hans, comes form Hans Ryggen, Hannah's husband, who was a renown painter.

On friday, first day of the workshop, we went by boat to Brekstad to visit the Hannah Ryggen Museum and had a look at the galley. On saturday we spent hours in the Hannah Ryggen Hall at The Museum of Arts and Crafts in Trondheim. A major collection of Hannah's tapestries are to be seen there. Indeed a unique well for inspiration to our 55x55 tapestries. Our studies in the two museums were completed by an ARAKNE conversation and discussion about Hannah Ryggen's life and work, her importance for the art of tapestry and her engagement in the society. We decided that the 55x55-series for
Gallei Hans will have the title "A Tribute to Hannah"

Part of Hannah Ryggen's tapestry
"Ja vi elsker"
Photo: Randi H. Hjorth

In addition to the common piece composed of small tapestries, each artist shows her individual work at the ARAKNE exhibitions. Verdensveven /Weave World Wide is the embracing theme guiding us in this four-women’s five-year-long tapestry project.

The website is supported by Bildende Kunstneres Hjelpefond.