Lauren Berkowitz
Yarn
00:02:00 1998
Yarn was a site-specific project commissioned for an exhibition titled “Resourceful” at the Ararat Gallery. Projected onto a wall of fleece, Yarn documents the everyday activity in the small country town of Ararat, Victoria well known for its wool production, and textile industries. The video weaves a short story beginning in the local textile factory, focusing on the repetitive daily work rituals and the spinning of yarn. The video records the work place of a local wool packer. It then travels to a vast open sheep grazing area, and then into the confined and isolated spaces of the former local mental asylum. Throughout the video the continuous monotony of the weaving looms, punctuate the narrative. In the Aradale asylum the weaving becomes menacing, resonating of padded cells, cocooned spaces, insulated from the outside world, a place of madness, where fact and fiction collide.
DVD available