No, this isn't a preview for a new Michel Gondry film, it's a snapshot of Wilson artist Suzanne Morlock's latest art installation. She unveiled her newest artwork, Magic Carpet Ride, at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, Poland on Jan. 19th. Morlock first visited Łódź (pronounced "woodge"), the third largest city in Poland, and the textile museum there five years ago. She knew of the city's history as a former textile manufacturing hub for Central and Eastern Europe. As India and China emerged as cheaper industrial competitors in the 20th Century, Łódź's fortunes waned, Morlock explained. Today, the city is revitalizing its image and renovating disused textiles factories into loft apartment buildings, marketplaces and museums.
That history offered Morlock – who has since returned to this side of the Atlantic – an ideal opportunity to meld her artistic philosophy and craft to the exhibiting space in the Central Textile Museum she was offered last year. "I'm interested in taking discarded things and breathing new life into them," Morlock said. "I use techniques rendered though the years as women's work and I like doing site specific work where I can look at the architecture, know the context of a place and use that to give me an idea of how to proceed and what to make." Magic Carpet Ride is made of newspaper 'yarn' loosely knitted into a scaly 80 feet long by 10 feet wide rug and it flies through a hallway in the Central Textile Museum. Morlock said she wanted to make a magic carpet for the museum in Łódź because, in her mind, "Magic carpets are a fantasy, flying to somewhere new and different. It's like seeing [Łódź] being reborn. The textiles are flying away and turning into something else," she said. Spinning a yarn Morlock developed her newspaper knitting technique about a year and a half ago. She first tears the newspaper into long strips and then uses an electric drill to spin the torn strips together. A glue of flour and water binds the news-rope into long strands. She said the hand movements used to spin the newspaper are similar to those used to spin wool.
The 12 art students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź quickly picked up Morlock's technique, and, working in groups of four for three-hour shifts a day, the students and the Wyoming artist put in a combined 250 hours of work in a week to spin all the yard needed to weave an elaborate carpet. It helped that most of the students had a decent command of English. At the opening of Magic Carpet Ride, Morlock spoke to the assembled crowd through an interpreter, asking the art lovers for feedback about her piece. She struggled to carry on a few conversations across the language barrier, using hand and body gestures. The simplest gestures, a thumbs-up and a smile, gave Morlock great pleasure.
The resulting 'yarn' is textural, Morlock said, "Because it's been twisted and knitted. It has a personality. It's not overly coarse, but not as soft as wool." She used the same technique to produce another site-specific work in Le Vigan, France last spring. Łódź gave her an opportunity to explore the technique on a larger scale. She's using the same technique to produce an installation piece that will be unveiled at Queens College in New York City in March. Though Morlock was shocked by the frigid temperatures in Poland during her two-and-a-half week stay there in January, she would like to return to Łódź in the near future to tackle a new and different artwork. Hanging out at the Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź.