Mitochondrial DNA carries the legacy of foremothers across time and space.
“In Conversation” is a pair of vintage wooden deckchairs where pre-existing broken fabric has been replaced by handwoven fabric. The two chairs each have different fabric inserts, one made from polished flax and recycled cotton cord and the other from jute twine with recycled cotton cord.
The flax chair uses seven sections of flax warp with cotton wefts. The cotton wefts start at the bottom of each flax section, moving up the section but also moving between sections, winding around and crossing over other cotton weft threads. This work represents information exchange between the seven generations of my family, with information – threads – moving back and forth between one, two, three or four generations, backward and forward in time. The information here is not genetic – which moves only forward in time, passing from one generation to the next – but social, geographical or skills; values-based information in feedback loops.
The jute chair has a chunky fabric made from twine with the cotton cord inserted as supplementary weft and warp to represent around 50,000 years of evolution of my mitochondrial genome in the form of a phylogenetic tree – a diagram that shows evolution over time from a common ancestor. Parts of the mitochondrial genome are stable over thousands of years and can be used to map evolutionary changes but also geographic migration patterns. The common ancestor at the top of the tree on this deckchair is referred to as “Jasmine” by Brian Sykes in his booked “The Seven Daughters of Eve” (the European daughters of Mitochondrial Eve, in this case). Jasmine lived around the middle east around 50,000 years ago, and Sykes proposes that her tribe were the first to domesticate plants. Over those 50,000 years, Jasmine’s descendants migrated across southern Europe and into the UK, ending up – among other places – in Angus, Scotland.
I learned to weave in 2016 while travelling around the world, after leaving my job as an academic scientist in the field of human genetics. While I was learning to weave, a tutor told me: “Your selvedges are very neat for a beginner – you must have been a weaver in a past life”. From genetics research to weaving. Maybe weaving is in my DNA…? The deckchairs sit as a pair alongside each other. They reference the coastal location where I now live and work in my “weaving laboratory”, creating objects that give physical form to scientific data. They offer a place for contemplation and conversation, for bi-directional exchange.
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