Janna van Welsem

Remembering; doing remembering; making remembering. Remembering in togetherness;
remembering in embodiment.
As I carefully collect, create, cut and sow my fabrics together; I want to concern myself with the
memories we embody.
Carefully: memories of a loved one, memories as gifts, memories unexplored.
Carefully: we are bodies, ‘human’ or ‘non-human’ or... defying category. We cannot be universal
(and we should not pretend to be so).
Carefully: to embody is to be activated daily but unconsciously; to embody is also to attentively
craft into.

Passive memorizing or active remembering both work in surprising ways. Sometimes, perceptions
or experiences prompt things we weren’t aware we had so deeply embodied; other times, the
things we thought we had so faithfully preserved, reveal themselves as a betrayal. In my
graduation work and process, I try to trigger those surprising events by recognizing and situating
memory as physical, as present in bodies.

My practice includes, but is not limited to, textile, soap, sculptural installations, drawings and text.
Recurring subjects in my work include memory, embodiment, tactility and storytelling. The
question of ‘how to relate’ always comes back at some level, if it is through the elements at play
within an installation, or through the suggestions it provokes specific to the site where it is placed.
My works can be described as somewhere between a drawing and a poem, in the spatial form of a
sculpture or an installation. However, my graduation work was more specific, focusing on quilting,
resulting in a series of quilts and/or patchworks.

The act, products and history of quilting inspire me, and have done so since I caressed my
mother’s quilts and watched my grandmother make them. I imagine I could already sense the rich
history of quilting that far preceded those personal memories. I see now that this history is still
being written today. My works - which I cautiously call quilts - are my explorations in an approach
to textiles that is sculptural, active, and evocative of personal connections.

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