sisters hope

We are two Canadian sisters living in London and Chicago, separated by distance and the impermanence of life. Following a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis, Andra was keen to develop a personal project for her patient advocacy work. She asked Ilga to run an idea-generation sketching workshop with her. This became the start of our weekly meetings, and now we've been collaborating online for nearly one year. Our intention was to spend precious time together and follow where our conversations took us. Paying attention, noticing moments, elevating these to fill the distance. “Love is the atmosphere that fills and colours the distance between.” [1]

We chose playful and performative techniques that would allow us to work together despite our separation. “Play is something fundamentally larger than the individual player or his mental state; it is a pattern of movement that surpasses the players, and is something to which both players belong.” [2] We began our collaboration with our grandmother’s hand-embroidered tablecloth, making rubbings from its surface textures and patterns, inspired by Max Ernst’s frottage. We used these to create compositions on paper cut to the shape of clouds – their silver linings being a significant theme.

Transfer (decalcomania) was another technique we investigated. Prompted by Hans Bellmer’s work in the 2021 Drawing Room exhibition FIGURE/S: drawing after Bellmer, Andra pressed her hands, feet and breasts onto paper. Her prints bear witness, insist on presence – I am here.

While visiting Bath (UK) last October, Ilga discovered the Roman practice of throwing notes on small thin sheets of lead into water. This preserved these messages over centuries. We also performed this ritual: writing on stones and leaves, we threw our own messages into the Thames and a tributary of the Skokie River while connected on a video call. Ilga’s stones represented what she wanted to let go of, while Andra threw her stones to anchor in the riverbed, rooting their messages under the continual flow of the water.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow was something both of us brought to the process: Andra via her long-standing interest in wellness and psychology, and Ilga via her facilitation of idea generation workshops. To access the flow state, you need visible results. [3] The process of doing, generates ideas and thoughts: Redi Koobak perfectly summarises – “thought happened in the writing, I doubt I could have thought such a thought by thinking alone.” [4]

In November, we attended a virtual conference on hope [5] where we discovered Casey Gwinn and Chan Hellman’s science of hope – “imagination is the instrument of hope” [6] – we discovered that hope is a way of thinking, it can be taught, measured, increased, and we proposed to enact the theory behind their ideas. Ilga turned this into the basis for an Action Research project for the completion of her Postgraduate Certificate Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication (PgCert) in January 2022, bringing together the experience of working with Andra and also groups of students in idea generation workshops. [7]

In February 2022, we invited our community to Walk With Us – part of Refugia, a walking art project by Esi Eshun for Five Years. We proposed a synchronous walk: participants were invited to join from anywhere, indoors or out, alone or in groups – the invitation was to get up and step into wonder. Action to generate hope. This gesture resonated with many: over 165 people from the UK, USA, Canada, Latvia, Denmark, Netherlands, Italy, Australia. (adults, children, 11 dogs and 1 horse) walked with us. Hope moves to action; it must be now.

At Five Years we exhibit our story, documenting our play, process and belonging. Andra and Ilga will be in the gallery together (hopefully in person, if not then virtually) over the first weekend, doing, making, and generating hope. Please join us 26-27 February and 5-6 March 12-3pm.

[1] Solnit, R. (2006) A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd.

[2] Vilhauer, M. (2010) Gadamer’s Ethics of Play: Hermeneutics and the Other. Plymouth: Lexington Books.

[3] Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997) Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.

[4] Koobak, R. (2014) ‘Six Impossible Things before Breakfast: How I Came across My Research Topic and What Happened Next’, in Lykke, N. (ed.) Writing Academic Texts Differently: Intersectional Feminist Methodologies and the Playful Art of Writing. New York: Routledge, pp95-110.

[5] Activating Hope Summit (2021) Available at: https://summit.soundstrue.com/activating-hope/broadcast-day1 (Accessed: 4-7 November 2021).

[6] Gwinn, C., Hellman, C. (2018) Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life. New York: Morgan James Publishing.

[7] Leimanis, I. (2022) “Does my Thinking Through Drawing workshop have potential beyond idea generation? What potential does my workshop have to support participants’ wellbeing, specifically through the lens of finding flow (Csikszentmihalyi) and hope (Gwinn & Hellman)?” Presentation for the completion of the PgCert, University of the Arts London.

We are grateful to Christian Kuras and Emily Heath for their valuable insight and help in final wording of this press release, and to our grandmother Līna Karlsons for the embroidered inspiration.

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