4329 – Palimpsest – Whitefeather Hunter
- Physical description:
- Palimpsest, Whitefeather Hunter, 2022, photochemical transfer on silk organza, embroidery on hand-dyed silk habotai, found baby mandrake, found devil's cherries and mushroom stems.
- Museum classification:
- images of witchcraft
- Size:
- 1400x 2500mm
- Information:
Part of Whitefeather Hunter's 2024 exhibition at the MWM entitled Arcanum Sanguinis - Occult Blood
Donated to MWM after the exhibition finished in October 2024
Palimpsest, Whitefeather Hunter, 2022, photochemical transfer on silk organza, embroidery on hand-dyed silk habotai, found baby mandrake, found devil's cherries and mushroom stems.
Displayed in the upstairs gallery with a video projection showing various performances conducted by the artist around Boscastle, of the process of art production involved in the making of the work.
Palimpsest addresses the historical accounts of witchcraft accusations and convictions, as found in the collection of rare texts at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. These primary texts, dating from the early 1600's, are typically inaccessible to the public due to their fragile nature. Here, the artist has transferred some of the pages from these texts to the surface of translucent silk cloth to create tactile ghost pages.
The cloth backdrop is stitched and sculpted into a dress-shaped form with chaotic and unravelling smocking - a decorative bunched-stitch style developed in England that has featured on garments since the middle ages-
This reference to dress is to indicate that the history of witchcraft is written on the bodies of - mostly- women.
- Resource:
- Object
- Materials:
- silk, organic materials
- Copyright ownership:
- Whitefeather Hunter
Part of Whitefeather Hunter's 2024 exhibition at the MWM entitled Arcanum Sanguinis - Occult Blood
Donated to MWM after the exhibition finished in October 2024
Palimpsest, Whitefeather Hunter, 2022, photochemical transfer on silk organza, embroidery on hand-dyed silk habotai, found baby mandrake, found devil's cherries and mushroom stems.
Displayed in the upstairs gallery with a video projection showing various performances conducted by the artist around Boscastle, of the process of art production involved in the making of the work.
Palimpsest addresses the historical accounts of witchcraft accusations and convictions, as found in the collection of rare texts at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. These primary texts, dating from the early 1600's, are typically inaccessible to the public due to their fragile nature. Here, the artist has transferred some of the pages from these texts to the surface of translucent silk cloth to create tactile ghost pages.
The cloth backdrop is stitched and sculpted into a dress-shaped form with chaotic and unravelling smocking - a decorative bunched-stitch style developed in England that has featured on garments since the middle ages-
This reference to dress is to indicate that the history of witchcraft is written on the bodies of - mostly- women.