Materialized Belonging, 2021 Ull, handvävd, jacquard, 143 x 365 cm, 143 x 293 cm Courtesy: Konstnären
“After I’m dead, where should my spirit go look for you? In heaven?” “Heaven is overrated. There is nothing there. Ghosts aren’t attached to places, but to people.”
From the movie Loong Boonmee raleuk chat, 2010
This textile work Materialized Belonging is based on a photo-collage by Malinn Daengtakote Petersén’s father’s Thai/Isaan sarong – a piece of fabric that is wrapped around the hips to form a tight skirt. It also includes her old Champion hoodie from secondary school, her younger brother’s boxing sarong and other textiles.
Daengtakote Petersén has built the image, which resembles a dragon and can be seen from two sides, out of these garments and then painted hands on the motif with black ink, before processing the image. Finally, she wove the motif using a complex Jacquard technique. The thoughts about origin, home and belonging and the deceptiveness of memories, which are captured in the slow work process, are woven into the image, along with thoughts about sorrow, life and the afterlife inspired by the Thai movie Loong Boonmee raleuk chat.
The movie is about a dying man who spends his last summer with his family in northern Thailand and talks to his wife, who is a ghost, and a forest spirit who appears in the guise of his son.
