Out of the Ordinary - Spectacular Craft at the V&A: Anne Wilson Installation

This joint V&A and Crafts Council exhibition featured eight international artists who place meticulous craftsmanship at the heart of their work. On display were unusual and beautifully crafted installations. The artists take inspiration from the everyday, transforming their subjects using traditional techniques in unexpected ways.

Anne Wilson lives and works in Chicago. Traditional textile techniques such as lace making, crochet and knitting are integral to her practice. Using these essentially homely activities, often associated with women, she applies them in unexpected ways to create powerful, complex and delicate forms.

For the Topologies installation, Wilson and a team of assistants spent a week pinning into place thousands of tiny parts - webs of black lace, crocheted thread and netting - to form a topography or a large map-like drawing. In a similar play on scale, she uses animated film to bring loose threads and pins to life. Small insignificant things become movie stars.

'In my art work the concept and content direct the use of material and process. I move from weaving, to sound, to glass, to video and collaborative practices very liberally, rather than being defined by a specific way of making. More constant is my interest in material histories and issues that come out of the everyday as they relate to our human condition.'

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Entertainment

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• V&A
• victoria
• albert
• museum
• craft
• anne
• wilson
• design
• contemporary
• art
• installation
• exhibition
• spectacular
• textiles
• lace
• making
• crochet
• knitting
• weaving
• Topoligies
• artists
• craftmanship
• netting
• thread
• webs
• pinning
• animation