Archive Event IX : je file un fil pour ma fille
Looiersgracht 60, Amsterdam
2025
In-situ installations: 100kg of raw wool (Heideschapen, hand-shorn in the Veluwe), tulle bales, hand-woven tensioning straps in spun raw wool
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
For Archive Event IX, Bourlanges takes her video work je file un fil pour ma fille (2024) as a point of departure. Filmed over the past four years, this audiovisual piece traces two parallel, intergenerational and interspecies relationships: one between the artist and her daughter, the other between a shearer, Hannah Christina, and her sheep. These intertwined narratives draw attention to the porous boundaries between gestures of bonding and labour within frameworks of care, as individuals navigate dominance, dependence, and mutual recognition.
The work expands into the exhibition space through a tactile installation composed of freshly sheared wool, packed into bales and tightly strapped around the columns of Looiersgracht 60. For the installation, Bourlanges collaborated with Hannah Christina and a shepherdess who tends to a flock of 180 Heather sheep roaming the Veluwe forest. Fifty of these sheep were hand-shorn by a group of women in the traditional manner, using shears. Bourlanges acquired and processed this annual wool harvest—100kg in total—a byproduct now deemed ‘waste’, for which shepherds may even be taxed to dispose of. In Looiersgracht 60, the raw wool is loosely contained in bales, delicate replicas of industrial big bags made of tulle, that subtly reference the building’s industrial past. These are held tightly by hand-woven tightening belts featuring tongue-twisters built on the alliteration of the letter ‘f’. Read aloud, these phrases evoke white noise, the first sound we hear in the womb. Yet these linguistic constructions simultaneously highlight patriarchal constraints embedded in the language: as Bourlanges notes in her essay, in French, there is only one word—fille—for both ‘girl’ and ‘daughter’, and femme denotes both ‘woman’ and ‘wife’, thus language framed the female condition through a relationship to either father or husband.
The act of wrapping around the architectural features of the exhibition space refers to the parenting ritual of ‘childproofing’—a gesture of preparation, safety, and care. Wool, a material long associated with warmth, care, and interspecies collaboration, also speaks to extractive labour practices and the decline of Western textile industries, representing the ongoing negotiation of boundaries, value, and the complexities surrounding labour and economic worth. Three hand-crafted tools appear in the space, sculptural reconfigurations of historical objects linked to wool-work and maternal care. These fusions, such as carding combs crossed with washing gloves, were crafted by the artist herself, embedding personal, feminist, and material histories into the work. During the opening night, the installation and tools became the setting for a performance developed collaboratively by Bourlanges and her daughter.
Credits:
Curators: Soraya Notoadikusumo and Nadine Snijders
Project Management and text: Nadine Helmy
Weaving assistance: Caro de Valk
Assistance: Yicheng Geng
All photos by LNDWstudio
Acknowledgements: Collecting wool for this exhibition was made possible with the crucial support of Hannah Christina and Heidi Slijkhuis, a shepherdess who tends a flock of 180 Heather sheep roaming the Veluwe forest. Fifty of these sheep were hand-shorn, in the traditional manner using shears, by women of The Movement. All weavings have been realized by hand with the skilled assistance of Caro de Valk, to which I am very grateful. In the performance, the French spinning song “La Fileuse” was originally found while compiling audio archival materials for Field Recordings with Liza Prins. I want to thank particularly Hannah Christina, for her kind welcoming into a world of sheep, Giulia Damiani for her critical sharpness on developing the dramaturgy of the performance, Liza Prins for her generous support with editing Thread-like Growth on Animated Beings, Caro de Valk for all the amazing weaving work, Yicheng Geng for her assistance over the past three months, and joining with her mother the collective effort of cleaning 100 kg of wool together with Thom van Hoek, luna kaya, Dieuke Kingma, and Anna Kiebiesz. Many thanks to Arianna Moroder and Cynthia Hattaway for sharing their deep knowledge of wool and shepherding, Hugo Rocci for impeccable riso printing, Mathilde Renault for beautiful filming and editing je file un fil pour ma fille, Carmen Gray for great analogue footages, Aimee Theriot-Ramos for composing an exquisite soundtrack, Alix Chauvet for graphic design of video titles, Ramon Coelho for digitization, Aurélien Lepetit and Severine Amsing for their invaluable weaving advice, Jan Schoon for generously lending me his vintage bobbin winder, Karolien Buurman and Herman van den Muijenberg for pointing me towards Mongolian coaxing rituals and shepherd whistles, Elise Ory for a sweet wool and gloves convo, Josha Zwanenburg for introducing me to Hannah Christina and planning future wool adventures with me, Arno Wolters and the wonderful volunteers of Buurtwerkplaats for helping me shape my own wooden comb, Andre Avelas for his advice with analogue sonic devices and help. Many thanks to Soraya Notoadikusumo, Nadine Snijders and Nadine Helmy from Looiersgracht 60 for inviting me to host the Archival Event IX, my friends Mayra Sérgio, Elena Khurtova, Virginie Rebetez, Marie Burlot, and Alma Teer for their indispensable support and witty remarks, and Bambi, Freya, Witski, Coco, and all the sheep that I met along the way. Lastly, to my daughter Zoe: thank you for tolerating my artistic pursuits, bringing endless wonder and brilliant exchange into my life.