wiki inspirations
A group of people transforming silk-worm cocoons into ‘one only silk thread’ enacts an ancient textile technology that has currently evolved into cosmetics and biomedicine. Recent biomedical research explores the properties and multiple uses of silk cocoons (sericin) as a highly versatile biomaterial (used in dermal and bone regeneration, reconstructive surgery, culture media, antitumor research and others)[1]. And not only (De La Cadena). Human-silkworm entanglements carry within their threads stories of gendered labor, exploitation, human exceptionalism, colonialism, industrial revolution, and bio-material-engineering and production. Bombix mori, the domestic silk moth, is also called white seductress — crystallizing knots of racial extractivism in such critters. However, in the process of rehearsal, in engaging with the unknown materiality of ‘one only silk thread’ and in discovering ways in which we can thread together, the practice brings a space to slow down and unhatch healthcare textiles into other material gestures.
[1] See reference articles.
Thinking with
this project keeps thinking-with and learning from:
Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2020) Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals.
Donna Harraway. (2016). Staying with the trouble
Co-sensing with radical tenderness. by Dani D’Emillia and Vanessa Andreotti (Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures)
Vincianne Despret (2016). What would animals say if we asked the right questions?
Human-silkworm entanglements threading stories of gendered labor, exploitation, human exceptionalism, colonialism, industrial revolution, and bio-material-engineering and production...
Texts from many genres … (to be expanded)
Baricco, Alessandro (1997). Seda. Anagrama
W. G Sebald (1995). The Rings of Saturn. London: Vintage Books
Bigelow, A. (2014) Gendered Language and the science of Colonial Silk. In Early American Literature 49, 2 pp.271-325. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/90000857
Frankopan, Peter. The Silk Roads.
Silkworm Biofactory (Industrial Biotechnology)
Iaoyan Tang et alt. (2014) Polymeric Biomaterials in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, in Editor(s): Sangamesh G. Kumbar, Cato T. Laurencin, Meng Deng, Natural and Synthetic Biomedical Polymers. Pp 351-371 Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-396983-5.00022-3.
Kunz, R. et alt. (2016) “Silkworm Sericin: Properties and Biomedical Applications,” BioMed Research International, vol. 2016, Article ID 8175701, 19 pages, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/8175701.]
https://fibershed.org/2022/01/20/silk-caught-in-a-web-of-deceit
Marsh, Ben (2020) Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World 1500-1840. (for a short intro to the book by the author, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEVyXMHwrg8
Silk Art
The Silk Pavilion. Media Lab. MIT. (2012) https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/silk-pavilion/overview/
Breathing 2020, by Zhao Rongjie. (2020) https://www.artseverywhere.ca/breathing-2020/
Enclosure, by Bea Camacho (2005/2014) https://highlike.org/media/2014/02/Bea-Camacho.jpg
