Tension, Balance [gabe duggan]

I work predominantly in space through installations but also in sound, video, and performance.
Fiber work is the lens through which I understand much of the material and immaterial worlds.
Though my work deviates widely from fiber traditions, I root deeply into this lineage as an educator.

“WOVEN” culls up these critical elements for me - tension and balance.

These expand and contract together to rule systems beyond weaving, both larger in scale and smaller in time. Tension and balance hold together not only the woven cloth but the yarns that construct it.

The foundation of these systems is potential energy- a twist that is bound, restricted, from untwisting.

Here are some ways to tell this story, which speaks to power structures as well as physics:
 

particles, fragments, residue.

bound together

through

 

tension, friction, balance.
 

bound together through

tension,
friction,
balance.
 

(bound together, through,)

 

“Hole in the pavement where the girls leaped from the ninth floor”1, 2

 

This material and its empires are supported by,


and suspended within,


systems of potential energy.

The forces that tear apart have been harnessed to bind together;

all is held together through,

forces that tear apart.
 

1 Ploof, John and Livingstone, Joan . The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production: 1st Edition. MIT Press, 2007

2 “Report on Deadly Factory Collapse in Bangladesh Finds Widespread Blame”. New York Times, 2013 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/report-on-bangladesh-building-collapse-finds-widespread-blame.html