Held in the hours, 26.09.2025 – 18.10.2025
Singer 20U industrial sewing machine, silk organza, a swatch of embroidered chiffon, vintage and contemporary cotton threads, and a forty-hour durational performance in which stitching accumulates as a record of labour and practiced skill, totalling eight days of work over four weeks. Performance documentation: Lucy Parakhina.
Held in the hours is a durational performance developed through repeated acts of machine stitching using a 1970s Singer 20U industrial sewing machine. Working in sustained dialogue with the machine, the performance foregrounds labour, attention, and accumulation, allowing time, fatigue, and material constraints to shape the work as it unfolds. Straight lines of stitching build slowly across 17 metres of silk organza, with pauses for care, adjustment, and rest becoming integral to the process. Drawing on intergenerational lineages of textile practice and embodied skill, the work traces how knowledge is acquired through repetition and touch, and how forms of women’s labour—often overlooked or rendered invisible—are held in muscle memory, hours of work, and cloth.
26 Sept - 18 Oct 2025
Sydenham International, Sydney, Australia
Performance documentation: Lucy Parakhina