Halina Edwards

An early miniature of a series of work called Body Mapping, where I thinking about skin and the body through the sensation of touch. It was my first time working within this colour palette and this material - I learned a lot. It can be a forgiving material, and it kept me present when working with it

This was the first kite I made, inspired by the flag making and textile workshops I had previously led. I wanted to understand the process of making them like my family members who made them. This is where I started to think more about tradition through material culture, assigning colour symbolism in the same way flags do:

Black, green, gold – Jamaican flag colours
Red, black, white – colours of The Black Country flag, and area in the West Midlands where I was raised

Made from several layers of tissue paper. The kite is delicate and cannot fly.

Adorned with trinkets passed down through her maternal line, from grandmother and mother to Edwards’ own collection of memory objects, is the vessel Mother Made Me (Memory Jug) (2024). Holding water, this memory jug draws from Africa’s Bakongo culture, which influenced enslaved communities in America and the Caribbean. The Bakongo tradition believes that the spirit world is upside down and that we are connected to it by water. They decorated graves with water bearing items (shells, vessels, pitchers, jugs or vases) which would help the deceased through the watery world to the afterlife. Items were broken to release the loved one’s spirit, to make the journey smoother. Clay was a common material used by the enslaved to cover water bearing items, later attaching items on it, a material Edwards has used in this piece.

Stretched across and wrapped around the beams are a range of nylon tights that provide a score for a nude tonality of blackness. Body Mapping (2024) is a site-responsive work that captures an improvised performance. A performance that is conducted between the dimensions of the space, property of the materials and Edwards’ manipulation of them. Tights that usually cover legs, or perform femininity, turn into their own worlds. Ladders, curves, ties and tensions become dimensions and portals to experience the differing textures and tones of our cosmetic skins.

Black Country (2010 – 2024) is a hand manipulated textile that implicates a terrain of extraction and soot, in which Dudley is rendered ghost-like as it casts shadows back on itself. A haunting that reminds us of when iron was manufactured in the Caribbean but then, in fear of it being used in a revolt, was brought back to towns in the UK, such as Dudley.

An early miniature of a series of work called Body Mapping, where I thinking about skin and the body through the sensation of touch. It was my first time working within this colour palette and this material - I learned a lot. It can be a forgiving material, and it kept me present when working with it