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Sara is an artist and designer working in textiles and fashion. She established
the "Sara Thorn" label in 1983 and followed with the "Abyss studio"
and "Funkessential" brands. She has designed textiles for "Christian
Lacroix" in Paris and "Bella Freud" in London. Sara also lectures
in textile and fashion in Australia and internationally. Sara's most recent
exhibition at Craft Vic was "Dreams of a Golden Thread". The use of
symbols and patterning, combined with mystical traditions is a driving force
in Sara's work and research. She has travelled to Borneo to study ikat weaving
and customs of the Iban people, to the Lisio Foundation in Italy for silk jacquard
weaving, and worked with traditional Indian artisans.
The desire to connect to the divine is one the strongest, prevailing forces that drives and connects our human spirit. Throughout our human history cloth, ritual, deities and beliefs have all been interwoven together in unique ways to create cultural and spiritual identities. In the textile cultures of Italy, India and Borneo not only have l found and learnt of the textile techniques and traditions but also have discovered the use of cloth as a veneration of the divine still existing today;examples discussed will be- the double ikat cloth of India and Bali, Catholic religious weavings from France and Italy and Ikat cloths of the Iban in Sarawak, Borneo .
Through my work in textiles I have sought to link my personal inspirations and visions with a time when the artisan was acknowledged as a cultural storyteller, guardian of traditions and often carrier of divine insights.
Today more than any other time in our human history, collectively we are searching for ways to understand and make sense of our troubled modern world. The ancient symbols of trees, animals, and gods have all but been replaced by corporate logos. Is the world really any different?
On the surface it appears so, yet if one looks a little deeper we will see that the desire to connect with notions of the divine still prevail.
My paper explores this through textile and body decoration.
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