Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Teesside University
Contribution to ‘The Rules of Earthly Wisdom’ Exhibition
'The Rules of Earthly Wisdom' is a sequence of six garments. These form the core of a single installation. They represent the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether and transcendence. The narrative is reinforced by photographic and moving-image projections in which the garments are immersed. For each garment there is a still image that augments the garment’s symbolic aspects, and a moving-image projection that develops the themes and symbolic nature of the imagery. The six elements reference the tantric system of centres of vital energy in the body found in Hindu tradition, the Sanskrit term tantra signifies continuity, flow and transformation. Changes in colour and image enhance the installation’s theme of change and transformation. Change is also present within the garments’ construction where Burton has transformed one original pattern to create six different garments. The installation is underpinned by Burton’s working process which integrates the drawn mark, found imagery and computer-generated imagery. Images reoccur in the garments in new and transformed forms. 'The Rules of Earthly Wisdom' was featured in Scythia 9, the international biennial exhibition of contemporary textile art, Ukraine, June 19-24, 2012. The exhibition brought together artists from over seventeen countries. The videowork 'The Many Names of God', a part of 'The Rules of Earthly Wisdom', was previously shown at the Hidden Cities exhibition, an international video art and photography festival curated by Luca Curci and held in the Koza Visual Culture and Arts Association, Istanbul.
