EVA London ’24: “Journey into Form: Transmediating the Woven Artwork of Jaad Kuujus”
We recently presented our new paper “Journey into Form: Transmediating the Woven Artwork of Jaad Kuujus” (by Kate Hennessy, Hannah Turner, Meghann O’Brien, Doenja Oogjes, and Reese Muntean) as a part of the EVA London ’24 conference (Electronic Visualization and the Arts). We love this relatively small, long-running conference at the British Computer Society in London. You can read our paper here.
Abstract
This paper addresses processes of transmediation of artwork between the tangible and the digital
through a series of recent collaborative works by weaver and artist Jaad Kuujus (Meghann O’Brien)
(Haida, Irish, and Kwakwaka’wakw) and co-authors. Starting with Jaad Kuujus’s explorations with
mountain goat wool, to her Chilkat and Raven’s Tail-style woven robe Sky Blanket, its digital
surrogate Wrapped in the Cloud, and a newly materialised digital-jacquard-woven robe, we explore
how decolonial research-creation and curatorial practices can look beyond replication to harness
the affordances of transmediated art to enable belongings––ancestral or otherwise––to be returned
to community while highlighting connections between the digital, land-based material practices, and
intangible knowledge.
Wrapped in the Cloud (2018) and Untitled Robe (2024) by Meghann O’Brien Jaad Kuujus installed at Bard Graduate Centre, 2024. Photo by Kate Hennessy.