LB°24 Participants

Karin Aurora Lindell

Seamstress, Karin Aurora Lindell. Luleåbiennalen 2013.

Karin Aurora Lindell (b. 1955, Sweden), is an artist based in Norway.

When I grew up, I spent a lot of time in my grandmother’s sewing studio. In the winter of 1965 a woman came to my grandmother with her daughter, bearing nine threadbare dresses under her arm. She wondered if grandmother could sew a dress for the daughter, who was going to be confirmed. Grandmother asked the woman to come back in four weeks, and to me she said: Now I am going to teach you to practise witchcraft, Karin! We unstitched the dresses, washed and ironed, salvaged buttons and zippers and threads that were longer than one metre. Then we picked out the parts that were least worn and started the process of sewing a dress. This made a permanent impression on me.

Seamstress is both a performance and an installation that as a starting point uses the altered production process within the textile industry during the 20th century. With this work, I want to shed light on issues surrounding the textile industry’s limitations, what a human life is worth and who should determine that.

Karin Aurora Lindell was born and raised in Huskvarna in Sweden, but now lives in Norway. Simple, everyday material and work processes from the tailoring profession as well as from industry are the point of departure for her conceptual art. Textile traditions among women in an international and global perspective are solidly anchored in Lindell’s work.

Work

Seamstress, installation/performance

Location

Luleå