Ties That Bind At The Waters’ Edge is an installation of moving image and textiles that explores common elements found within domestic crochet and commercial fishing environments. Utilizing the knotting, looping and fastenings found within these contexts, the piece also combines McElroy’s and Perkins’ mutual interests in social and gender connections, traditional craft skills and practices.

 

The viewer is invited to observe closely the formal qualities of a working harbour and acknowledge its semi-industrial heritage; A silent, rhythmic film is projected through two suspended crocheted cotton yarn ‘nets’, as a way of investigating connections between community, site, shared histories and gender.

 

Integrating their methods and use of materials in this way, McElroy and Perkins aim to create a dialogue between the sculptural and the filmic components of the installation and to instigate new narratives, both formally and conceptually by highlighting pattern, structure, repetition and line within each context. The installation could also be seen to question ideas around  gendered activities and spaces by comparing the aesthetics within the ‘domestic’,and ‘decorative’ with  the ‘industrial’,and ‘functional’.