Katherine Soucie

Knitting is a method of textile construction that pre dates weaving and is composed of one continuous length of yarn or string. It is a transformative act that led me to embark upon a journey in 2002 that began as research into transforming knitted pre-consumer waste textiles, specifically waste hosiery (aka pantyhose) into new textiles for clothing.

As a material, hosiery embodies a unique construction, history and end use. However, since 1938, it has been manufactured as a petroleum by-product and designed to be disposable which it is not. The inherent design flaws of this material (running, pilling) in connection with its end use/life cycle continues to inspire and influence my ongoing research. It invites new discoveries with tools (obsolete and new technology) and allows me to expand upon form, structure and application in ways I never imagined. New pathways have come to establish itself into my creative process which inevitably grants me with the honour to act as an interpreter of this material by being able to tell its story.

Cast ON, Cast OFF is a distillation of what I experienced as part of my residency at hcma. The various conversations, travels (US + Western Australia), failure (trial and error) I experienced led me down a new pathway into I approach the use/reuse of waste materials I physically produce in the studio and how this can be transformed into a yarn and applied to the knitting process using craft applications to create 3D forms and environments. I look forward to seeing the finished installation in hcma’s Vancouver studio.

“Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.” (or knit)

Walter Benjamin