WYP PYM (Siri Johansen, Celia Pym)
Blankets
17/02/2024—17/03/2024
WYP PYM PASTRY BAG TEST BLANKET 3, 2023
Jacquard knitted wool blanket made of leftover yarn
92 × 132 cm
£ 550
WYP PYM BAGUETTE BAG TEST BLANKET 2, 2024
Jacquard knitted wool blanket made of leftover yarn with mending in various yarns
94 × 240 cm
Sold
WYP PYM BAGUETTE BAG TEST BLANKET 4, 2022
Jacquard knitted wool blanket made of leftover yarn with mending in various yarns
101 x 208 cm
Sold
WYP PYM BAGUETTE BAG TEST BLANKET 1, 2024
Jacquard knitted wool blanket made of leftover yarn with mending various yarns,
94 × 240 cm
£ 735
WYP PYM TEST SWEATER, 2023
Knitted jumper with mending in various yarns and knitted patches
80 × 70 × 4 cm
Price on request
WYP PYM BLANKET SAMPLE 1, 2023
Test for jacquard knitted wool carpet made from leftover yarn with mending in various yarns
28 × 44 cm
Price on request
WYP PYM BAGUETTE BAG TEST BLANKET, 2024
Jacquard knitted wool blanket made of leftover yarn with knitted patches and mending in various yarns,
88 × 216 cm
Price on request
WYP PYM PASTRY BAG TEST BLANKET 1, 2023
Jacquard knitted wool blanket made of leftover yarn with mending various yarns,
91 × 155 cm
Price on request
WYP PYM KNITTED SAMPLE WITH MENDING, #1, 2022
Price on request
Celia Pym, MENDED PASTRY BAG, 2023
Paper bag and various yarns
21 × 30 × 15 cm
Price on request
Celia Pym, MENDED BAGUETTE BAG, 2022
Paper bag and various yarns
36 × 5 × 10 cm
Price on request
brings together a collection of knitted blankets made in collaboration between the designer Siri Johansen, Waste Yarn Project, (WYP) and artist Celia Pym, exploring how to translate hand-made and mended paper-bags images into digital knit.The exhibition showcases their core interests around playfulness and being resourcefuland careful with materials – as well as the process of collaboration. These new designs are based on images of two of Pym’s mended paper bags. The knitting uses the characteristic WYP process of ‘chance’ to choose the colours of the left-over yarns for the blankets. In developing this new work, several samples displayed holes andtraditional ‘flaws’ as they came off the machines.The technicians who produced the blankets in Sofia, Bulgaria, were disappointed andfrustrated by the flaws, but Pym and WYP saw opportunities in the holes – opportunities toplay with patching, darning and stitching to repair and reinforce. The collaboration is a space for play between the two long-term friends. It is, at heart, playing together with colour, pattern, and the structure of knitting and weaving.
Siri Johansen (b. 1983, Norway) is a Paris-based knitwear designer. She graduated with an MA from the Royal College of Art in London in 2008. She then worked for Burberry and Pringle of Scotland, before relocating to Paris in 2013 where she headed up the Kenzo knitwear team for eight years before co-founding Waste Yarn Project in 2020. In 2015, Siri was invited to the Josef and Anni Albers art residency, THREAD, in Tambacounda, Senegal. On the residency, she largely worked with any materials and yarns that were to hand. Being resourceful with leftovers and ends of yarn was the seed of Waste Yarn Project (WYP). WYP is an initiative that repurposes surplus yarns to create one-of-a-kind knitwear. The process is guided by a system of controlled randomness that places chance expression at its heart. Beginning with what WYP finds, unique combinations of yarns across spectrums of colour are determined by spinning a colour wheel that Siri took more than a year to develop. The colour wheel directs knitters which yarns to choose. This means that every spin on the WYP ‘Wheel of Fortune’ produces a singular result. And each piece is numbered to reflect that singularity.
The London-based artist Celia Pym (b. 1978, London, England) has been mending clothing since 2007. Working with garments that belong to individuals as well as items in museum archives, she has broad experience with stories of damage, from moth holes to accidents with fire. Pym is interested in exploring the varied evidence of damage, and how repair draws attention to the places where garments and cloth wear down and grow thin. ‘Darning is small acts of care,’ she says, ‘and paying close attention.’ In 2017, Pym was shortlisted for the BBC Woman’s Hour Craft Prize and the inaugural Loewe Craft Prize. Her work has been exhibited in Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, Korea (2023):
Connect. Reveal. Conceal,and at Make Hauser & Wirth, London, UK (2023): Threads:
Breathing stories into materials. And also at the Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2023); at Herald St, London (2022):
Say Less,and at Firstsite, Colchester, Essex, UK (2022):
Keep Being Amazing.She is an Associate Lecturer in Textiles at the Royal College of Art and published her first book,
On Mending: Stories of Damage and Repair,in 2022.
