For the installation 'To Dwell in Pitch Black Pearls', artist Karin van Dam developed 450 knitted mohair cocoons that make tangible the fragility of the Canadian mining town of Lethbridge.
To create a relationship between her work and the place where it is exhibited, Van Dam always researches the place in question. While preparing for her installation in Lethbridge, she discovered that the houses are built on a large network of coal mines. This mysterious underground network and the pitch-black fuel extracted from it became the installation’s starting point. The fragile, hollowed-out structure of the maze below the city is reflected in the fragility of the thin forms in the work.Â
For the installation, Van Dam made the first cocoon herself by crocheting around two spherical shapes. Then, in the TextielLab, she investigated ways to produce the other 449 cocoons mechanically. Because knit and purl stitches on the knitting machine would result in one side of the shape being completely flat, she chose the textured moss stitch instead. Once knitted, the cocoons were combed for a week, giving them a soft skin.
Artist Karin van Dam (1959) is known for creating installations made with materials such as boat fenders, rope and insulation pipes. She sees her installations as spatial drawings through which viewers can walk. Indeed, the installations always start out as small drawings. Here too she often integrates spatial objects such as rubber caps, rope and wooden sticks. Urban structures and street patterns are an important source of inspiration, which she then translates freely and intuitively, guided by the possibilities that the chosen materials and objects offer her.
