Crossing These Times
Viola Silvi
Series of ten cross-stitched pieces, cotton on Aida cloth, 24cm x 19,5cm each.
Over the course of five months, ten selected online pieces of news have been given a physical form through the practice of cross-stitching, a kind of embroidery.
This ancient practice composes images by creating about 3mm x-shaped stitches on fabric by hand with a threaded needle. This detailed succession of individual stitches requires a considerable amount of time to reach the completion of the whole chosen subject to represent.
Because of the slowness of this procedure, copying the headlines and images of the constantly updating and volatile news means embarking in an impossible task, resulting in a series of pieces inevitably left incomplete.
The methodical work of cross-stitching dynamically mirrors the experience of reading the news every day and seeing it insistently change. The way many events can simultaneously occur, this can leave the illusion that many questions and unsolved issues have been left behind, and that the only option is to just move one’s attention on.
Stitching, being a manual job, serves as physical company to the person doing it. The engaging focus that is put into it serves as a pacifier to balance unwanted emotions, shifting the completion of the chosen starter image to a plane of later importance.
Jumping from reading one news headline to the next, regardless of how frustrating it can be, has continuity, analogue to the practical work of stitching cross after cross.
