‘Filamentous’ by Kelley Aitken and Elaine Whittaker was created between 2020 and 2023 and draws from the daily rituals that became part of our lives and art practices during the pandemic. Isolated in our homes, yet connected by technology, our conversations over tea centred on our gardens and restorative walks in nature. The installation’s wall montage of solar-dyed teabag panels represents those daily markers and is a chronicle of those days and seasons passed during lockdown. The installation includes individual net canopies with cyanotype silk portrait hangings and connected interwoven rope nests. Creating ‘Filamentous’ was a way of tuning into and appreciating nature and allowing us to focus on a healthy and regenerative process while the world was in turmoil.

‘Filamentous’ includes two cyanotype figurative portraits of the artists on silk suspended inside two lightweight fibre canopy nets that hang from the ceiling. On the floor two nylon coiled rope nests meet the canopies and are tethered by more nylon rope. The blue backdrop between and slightly behind the canopies is made up of teabag tapestries suspended from dowels, which also hang from the ceiling. Recycled teabags—later glued into panels with konnyaku paste—were painted with solar dye, exposed to UV light outdoors or through a window during winter, and imprinted with garden and aquatic plants and wildflowers, dried flowers from received bouquets, lace and crocheted runners, tomatillo casings, animal skeletons, feathers and found objects. The whole installation has a slightly kinetic quality. In situ, the netting, the suspended silk portraits and the teabag panels will shift and flutter in the movement of air caused by people walking by.

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‘Filamentous’ is one of several projects at STACKT Market for the 2025 DesignTO Festival. Celebrate these projects with a free, site-wide party on Sat, Jan 25 from 6-10pm. Visit ‘Design Collection @ STACKT Launch Party’ to learn more.