The Traces of a Traveller: Textile-Based Narrative in Contemporary Art Practices

This research project is designed through the use of a metaphorical 'traveller', to record the readings of environment and the 'traces' ofa traveller's observations. It starts from the author's own cultural context, and then crosses through the journey into a new cultural vision. By searching for clarification in fragmented thoughts and in exploring the concept of 'the traces of a traveller', the textile based narrative will be constructed through the shifting traces in the artist's memories and her visual reading of the environment whilst travelling. Other travellers such as the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, Richard Long and Hamish Fulton will be discussed. The research will explore the thinking processes and the creative source materials of metaphorical textiles through various representational media. Textile vocabulary is regarded as a metaphor and simile to my art practice, as well as in developing a creative method and research methodology. A non-linear way of thinking will be proposed through exploring the creative process-collecting the traces and forming the ideas and references will be made to Chuang Tzu and Edward de Bono. The main body of collecting the content of the traces of memory is to explore historical and environmental traces. It will include those types of stories relating to my textile connotations and imagination that I have accumulated. The content will connect with materials I have collected that contain images of home and are based on individual memories about textiles. Textile artists such as Michael Brennand-Wood, Marian Bijlenga, Polly Binns and Sue Lawty etc. will also be discussed.

This research aims for the art practice and the development of transforming interpreted ideas into the form of art. The shifting boundaries will be generated from the discontinuity of personal memories and the shifting traces of a traveller's movement which crosses from one field to the other; the development of the idea ofthe transformation from material (textiles) into immaterial (video images) will thus be shaped. The relevant film artists such as Ming-liang Tsai, Andrey Tarkovsky, Chris Marker and Norman McLaren will be discussed. An aspect of contextualising the fragmented ideas into telling a continuously developing story, which conveys an essence of non-linear ways of narration, will be experimented with.

The author has requested that this thesis not be made open access. Please contact UAL Research Online for further details.