The Thread Exhibition

The Thread was a group exhibition held at an old launderette on Mill Road, Cambridge in August 2001. Myself, Becky Taylor-Shaw and Arun Vasudeva created work in response to the space.

The series of works I made for The Thread all shared a few core themes; the pathos, grandeur and absurdity of naming. To Boldly Go addressed the ironic short-sightedness of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille’s naming of the constellation ‘Telescopium’ in 1754. The I of the storm married the ritual christening of nature’s most chaotic and uncontrollable force - the hurricane - with the names scratched on the rim of tumble-dryers by idling customers. Hung out to dry was an attempt at photographing the front of all 100 shops along one side of Mill Road: in a street of independent shopkeepers, the shop names (and states of repair) each tell of unique dreams - some grand, some humble, some long-dead, some just beginning.