Weaving Water
A Public Art Project by Sarah Nassif
About Weaving Water
Weaving Water is a socially engaged public art project exploring the intersections of water, weaving and shared experience both visible and invisible. Participants are invited to become part of an informal indigo dye and weaving workshop. They transform plain yarn or cloth through a series of steps: folding and binding the cloth or fiber, wetting it out in water from site-specific locations, dipping in indigo dye vats, unfolding to reveal the pattern made. These dyed materials are transformed again as participants weave them into new cloth on the SAORI loom, obscuring the patterns made as these fibers become part of a new whole. Participants are transformed from a group of strangers to an operating fiber studio team.
The experiences connects the ideas of how we can make new patterns from old and how cloth connects us directly to the natural world and our shared human history of creativity. Each individual creates their own patterns using the same steps but produces unique results. The dyed fibers bear the makers’ personal imprints and absorbs the unique qualities of the water used in the dye process. The methods used are clear metaphors of how we can grapple with complex environmental and social puzzles.
Through ongoing public workshops that are commissioned by partners, Weaving Water can come to your community or organization to host a customized workshop or talk. Through this meditative learning and handcraft experience, strangers become a team and water becomes a basis for addressing shared challenges together.
See examples of Weaving Water projects in my Portfolio.
Participate in Weaving Water
Thank you for attending a Weaving Water Workshop or visiting a gallery installation of the project. Please make yourself at home and teach yourself how to weave on the SAORI loom. Follow your instincts! Simply press either pedal and insert a length of cloth or yarn into the shed opening. Then switch pedals and repeat. Use the tools and materials provided. Learn by trial and error or by viewing the videos.
Follow your curiosity to learn more about weaving water topics by reading from the bibliography list.
How to Commission a Weaving Water Workshop
Contact Sarah to talk about how bringing Weaving Water to your organization can help you connect in a deeply meaningful way with your audience. Weaving Water Workshops are customizable and are adaptable to all ages and abilities. Contact Sarah to learn more and set up a complimentary discovery meeting.
Weaving Water Artworks
Weaving Water Workshops produce tangible, beautiful textiles! These may be small items participants take home, or they may be larger collaborative works.
Droplet Series
Woven yardage made at larger or longer term events captures the unique handwork of the multitude of participants. The Droplet Series creates a simple circular wall hanging that can become a striking artwork for any setting and a conversation piece to recall the community experience of creating it.
Installations
Personal Watersheds is an indoor interactive exhibit that participants can visit and participate in anytime. It is currently on view at the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization.
Weaving Water Partners Past and Present
Weaving Water Workshops have popped up at North House Folk school for Family Weekend, at Mississippi Watershed Management Organization where I am the ongoing Artist in Residence, on the banks of the Mississippi as part of Many Waters: A Minnesota Biennial in 2021, hosted by the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
Since it began in 2018, Weaving Water Workshops have engaged thousands of people at events on Lake Superior, the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Zumbro River Falls in Rochester, Hidden Falls in St. Paul, and more. The project is also the basis of the interactive exhibit Personal Watersheds, on view at Mississippi Watershed Management Organization since June 2022.