Things that aren’t there anymore, ink, linen, lining and tulle fabrics, direct and reactive dyes, thread, cord, 5.5m x 10.5m installed at group show Thread Count Pt.2 at The Old Theatre, Framlingham, Suffolk, July 2024. All images by photographer Doug Atfield
Things that aren’t there anymore – They are made with screen prints of items found in our family home and attic – nostalgic toys, technologies, food packaging and homewares – hoarded from the 90s/ 00s. I was thinking about using the different opacities of the fabrics, from sheer & translucent to the thicker opaque linens, and their slipperiness and movement for people to walk through.
I liked the idea of them being elusive and floaty, to be giant but somehow unstable and ethereal. I liked the idea they were something you can’t really hold onto, not ‘really here’ – the ink making ghosts of objects which have largely disappeared from people’s homes. I enjoyed experimenting with the thickness of the ink itself by using different binders & playing with the opacity and clarity of the images: how things get lost & change in the processes of making.
I was also thinking about how much material domestic stuff gets ’updated’…slowly, unnoticeably and, in a way, out of our control as trends and fashions and brands change. These are the daily things we find easy to forget, but this makes them strangely moving. The lost or forgotten objects seemed to be brought back to life or repopulated as they were being memorialised.
I thought of the different colours of the two panels: one cooler and more sombre, the other warmer and happier. Maybe different moods of memories. The aim was for these two contrasting energies hang together with their holes and windows, so that one fills the gaps of and illuminates the other.
A series of smaller framed works – see below. Image by Doug Atfield
How things look, photo by Doug Atfield, 315cm x 248cm, Ink, fabrics, thread, wood
How things look, above 4 images by Sophie Giller
How things look by Doug Atfield
Stay awhile linen, inks, thread, wood, foam, a space to sit.
Text by The Art Station: Giller’s enormous new installation, Things That Aren’t There Anymore, comprises of two meticulously constructed curtains and a window covering, How Things Look, which adorns the interior of the historic Old Theatre. Using a combination of new and repurposed textiles, techniques such as printmaking, and both hand and machine stitching, Giller reframes images of outmoded ephemera and objects from her childhood and the ‘90’s and ‘00’s as everyday relics.
For many years the artist has been collecting different types of packaging, defunct technologies, retro toys, clothing, and other domestic items. Printed representations of this paraphernalia are layered onto sections of translucent, colourful textiles, and pieced together, disrupting the traditional notion of patchworking as a domestic, craft-based activity.
The seating area, Stay A While, invites us to contemplate nostalgia, the life cycle of materials and the value we place on them, and the shifting material and visual backdrop to domestic life.
Stay awhile – They were made with the intention of making somewhere comfortable to sit in and cut up the space, where artworks could be viewed all around, at different levels. I chose calmer and deeper blues and played with the thick 3D ink that looked embossed and like reliefs of the ghostly objects from the 90s/ 00s. I liked playing with the transparency and delicacy of the printed hanging fabrics and then the more dense opaque seating, with big blocks of colour, low and foamy, with a different joy of letting people touch and use the works.
Buy more time & Losing the object, fabric, inks, puff binder, metal
Losing the image & Things we know & Reflexing response
Emblematic of you. Image on right by Sophie Giller, all others Doug Atfield above & below.
Below – Exhibiting artists at Thread Count Pt.2 : Rebecca Reiss, Freddie Robins, Daisy Collingridge, Woo Jin Joo, Andrew Omoding, Annabel Elgar, Rosie Edwards. All photos by Doug Atfield.
Sophie Giller 