It’s hard to comprehend the number of hours it would’ve taken Jedda-Daisy Culley to complete her weaving, Sunset, 2019. The scale of it is overwhelming, stretching 2.4 metres towards the ceiling and past arm’s width at 3.4 metres long. The weaving hovers somewhere between sky and ground within Culley’s latest exhibition, Printers and Portals at Jerico Contemporary. Despite its natural subdued tones, it pulses with energy, meaning, life. The urge to reach out and touch the intricate bumps and mounds that bind the textile together is all consuming. Hands rise and then fall, longing to loop a finger through a loose thread. Stepping back, letters fall into formation: ‘YOLO’, but its back-to-front and upside down: ‘O˥O⅄’. The acronym is completely inverted. Curiosity is sparked within the viewer, as they begin to enter Culley’s perspective, a portal she has long intended for them to venture down.
Entirely handwoven by Culley, Sunset is made up of wool, hemp, and cotton twine. The work is what the artist refers to as a ‘blanket of gentle protest’. Dealing with heartache from a personal tragedy, as well as entering a new chapter a mother, Culley became disillusioned by the meaning behind ‘YOLO’. She was agitated by the way it pervades contemporary society and why people subscribe to it with such veracity. Completely refusing the notion of ‘YOLO’, Culley turned it on its head. Plucking a digital aphorism from the virtual realm, the artist decided to weave it into something tactile. Playing on meme culture and dismissive sayings that pervade the discourse of online comments and chatter, Culley reverts the throwaway effect of ‘YOLO’ by hand weaving it into tangible matter. In keeping with the slow, introspective process of weaving, Culley grants the viewer a moment to ‘meditate on’ the impact and meaning of the message she presents.
The back of the weaving is arguably just as fascinating. The innards of the work spill from the back of the textile; the guts of Culley’s intention suspended mid-air. The exposed lengths of wool and hemp weave a message of their own, revealing the aftermath of the weaving algorithm Culley employed throughout her making process. There is a relationship at work here, between the algorithm of the handmade and of the digital realm.
The juxtaposition between the tech aphorism and material substance of the work urges the viewer to rethink their vocabulary both online and offline, in the real world. The warmth immitted by the artwork suggests we ought to wrap and nurture our perspectives and opinions in this blanket before releasing them, in order to achieve a more considered way of communicating with one another. Although this Sunset may only be temporary, as the work itself is at risk of eventually decomposing due to its organic composition—which would obliterate ‘O˥O⅄’ entirely. Perhaps Culley is encouraging the viewer to create their own gentle protest, to print out what they wish to see in the world and realise it in a physical, meaningful way, so that others can approach it, engage with it, and enact kinder conversations around it.