Nick visits Blackburn to meet Elena Jackson, co-founder and co-director of the National Festival of Making. He explores two of this year's festival commissions: Breathing Colour by gallery-represented textile artist and designer Margo Selby, featured on BBC Front Row, and Invisible Hands by ceramic artist Nehal Aamir.
Listen here.
A mesmerizing and celebratory textile installation, Breathing Colour is an immersive experience of color, form, and sound that is both joyful and uplifting. Located in the North Transept of Blackburn Cathedral, this site-responsive textile sculpture evokes the movement of cloth through a factory, flowing in waves and folds through the machinery. The suspended form begins on the cathedral floor, rises to tower 9 meters into the vaulted ceiling, and then descends back down.
This rise and fall reflect a respiratory waveform, symbolizing a deep breath in and out, mirroring the nature of the workforce at Standfast & Barracks, closely aligning with the work of Margo Selby.
During the residency, 160 employees selected a single tone associated with a personal memory. The arrangement of colors is inspired by the methodical organization of color swatches and color cards found in the Standfast & Barracks archive.
The piece's construction draws on lenticular printing, with the cloth stitched into concertinaed ‘gills.’ The final work comprises 100 meters of printed and pleated fabric, marking 100 years of Standfast & Barracks.
Selby collaborated with composer-artist Peter Coyte to create a sound piece that captures the rhythms of the machinery and the relationship between the river and the factory, while also paying homage to the factory’s brass band.
