Archive event IX : je file un fil pour ma fille
Looiersgracht 60, Amsterdam
2025
Performance, duration 15min
Tools for performance:
a. re-imagined carding combs: hand-woven gloves in spun raw wool, carding pins
b. scaled-up lice comb: elm wood
c. transformed vintage bobbin winder: cast iron, brass, hand-woven strap in spun raw wool
d. wool bale: raw wool, tulle
e. shepherd whistle on silver chain
During the opening night, the installation and tools served as the setting for a performance developed collaboratively by Bourlanges and her daughter. Moving intuitively through the space, the duo engaged performatively with the installation, using hybrid tools and reconfigured objects crafted by Bourlanges herself, such as carding combs fused with washing gloves, a scaled-up lice comb used by daughter on mother while singing an original French spinning song, and reinterpretations of horizontal spinning gestures as depicted in Liebermann’s 1887 painting The Flax Spinners. These hybrid actions seek to unravel the layered dynamics embedded in both wool-working and maternal practices, along with their broader socio-ecological entanglements.
Credits:
Performers: Zoe and Marie Ilse Bourlanges
Dramaturgy in collaboration with Giulia Damiani
Curators: Soraya Notoadikusumo and Nadine Snijders
Project Management and Text: Nadine Helmy
All photos by LNDWstudio
Acknowledgement: In the performance, the French spinning song “La Fileuse” was originally found while compiling audio archival materials for Field Recordings with Liza Prins.
“L’autre jour je me promène / Je rencontre mon berger / Il m’a dit d’un air si tendre / Qu’il voudrait ben m’embrasser / Comment voulez-vous / Comment voulez-vous / Comment voulez-vous que j’ file / On peut pas toujours filer.”
(The other day I'm out for a walk / I met my shepherd / He told me so tenderly / That he would like to kiss me / How could you think / How could you think / How could you think that I’m able to spin (play on words: run away) / We can't always spin away (play on words: run away).
