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Hair is a human material: a filamentary vessel for our genetic information, it multitasks as an aesthetic band-aid, a mourning conduit, an intrinsic identity card, and an overall knotty entanglement with our existence.
Craft is a human practice: the hand being its essence, it embarks on a journey, from conception to execution, of problem-solving. Dexterity and tenacity are the sought-after traits; materials are to be tamed.
Inspired by Jane Bennett’s The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics, the artistic research delves into these two sites where vibrant materiality is muffled by the smothering hands of anthropocentrism and sets to cultivating a response-ability to the affective dimensions of things and tell tales of their emerging moments of enchantment.
Two particular states of wonder, encountered during the making of the artwork that constitutes the artistic research together with a written thesis, are highlighted in an attempt to provide the reader with an immersive experience of an enchanting materiality that heightens senses, suspends critical faculties, and immobilizes time.
At the concluding yet certainly not ending stage of the research, an ink wash painting arises; a renewed ontological understanding of materiality in craft is hoped; perhaps an ethical generosity encouraged by a wondrous joy rather than a tragic self-loathing can thus be imagined.
Keywords: craft, hair, enchantment, materiality, new materialism, matter
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