Kompendium 46 – Hønsestrik/Hens´knit

Kompendium 46 | 2022
Hønsestrik
Hens’ knit
Åse Eg Jørgensen

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ISBN 978-87-7603-236-4
Forlaget Space Poetry

For a collaborative artwork I decided to revive a technique, I practised, when I was young. A way of knitting that in Danish is called Hønsestrik – litterally it means Hens’ knit. The book and manifest “Hønsestrik” was published in 1973: “Hønsestrik is a REBELLION against rigid knitting patterns that do not make knitters fantasize in the knitting”.

In a remarkable embroidery of text (at the V&A) the first words read: “As I cannot write”. That puzzled me … was writing not what the embroiderer did? Then I read, in a story by Selma Lagerlöf, about a young woman learning to read and write. To form the writing with pen and ink was difficult, but when she sewed the words with cloth, needle and yarn, the forms, the writing became elegant and convincing. Text — writing — typography, using the means, one knows the best, for conveying text, conveying message. The form is changing the text.

Knitting is a slow way of writing. The time invested makes the words manifest. I began to knit in late winter 2022. The first piece partly reflects the theme of the exhibition, the artwork is meant for. Gradually words from the political environment made their way into the knit.

preposttraumatik
autofornægtelse | auto denial
roe vs wade
zenitisimus (from art magazine Zenith, 1930es Serbia/Croatia)
rrr retro petro rrr
altmuligkvinde | everythingwoman or
handy woman
Oh olie | Oh oil
retro avantgarde
mon maane | my moon

When the rain did not fall in spring, the second piece began reflecting the physical environment partly in images, partly in text.

Allike | Jackdaw
strandarve | sea sandworth
Gråand | Mallard
Møl | Moth
ålegræs | eelgrass
Ræv | fox
Guldsmed | dragonfly
Husskade | Magpie
cikorie | chicory / mandstro | sea holly
skovflåt | wood tick
egern | squirrel

As the heatwave added to the drought, I began to knit words of places for life that ought to be acknowledged and cared for. Biotope means ‘place for life’. Places defined by factors like temperature, humidity, soil and characterised by certain plants, animals, fungi, creatures. The biotopes in this piece are composed of two words that together form an image of a landscape and the creatures living in it.

blandskov | mixed forest
søbred | lake shore
højmose | high bog
kystklint | coast cliff or clint
Strandeng | beach meadow
vejkant | roadside
græsland | grass land
Moseskov | bog forest
Klithede | dune heath (heide)
overdrev | over drift
fattigkær | poor pond
byruderater | waste ground

Åse Eg Jørgensen

2022

20 sider
format: 15 x 21 cm.
vægt: 27g.
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