Katrina Wilde

Katrina is an artist and facilitator based in Stoke-on-Trent, working with plant and mineral colour. She mostly works collaboratively, acting as a bridge between the plant world, people and communities; reigniting curiosity and care for the natural world - of which we are a part.

Her work is anchored in the knowledge that everything is connected. She believes in the power of intimacy, looking to enable people to reconnect with the rhythms and rituals of nature through colour, materials and process. Sharing perspectives and facilitating space for people to play is central to her work.

She is currently working with the Portland Inn Project, Spode Rose Garden and local schools delivering workshops and participatory programs, and has recently been commissioned by the Materials Science Research Centre (RCA). She runs and shares a textile design and making studio with her sister, Wilde Studio.

Katrina’s work intersects across public and community engagement, education, research, fashion, materials, storytelling and performance.

Recollect // To remember, to gather, to bring knowledge together.

Всичко ново е забравено старо (Everything New is Forgotten Old)

Tacit, embodied knowledge is embedded in each of us, passed on through hands, mouths, generations of kin. The old ways become new ways become old and new again, in a continuous cyclical process. The exchange of knowledge that happens between people continues this cycle. Nothing old, nothing new. Material becomes a bridge and a non-verbal language between one another.

Всичко ново е забравено старо (Everything New is Forgotten Old) is something my grandma said to me recently, as we were looking through some of mine and my sister's textile work, recollecting her own memories of her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother working with textiles, plants and healing.

This work is a collaboration between my maternal grandmother, Nadezhda, and myself. In a fragmented archive, I document her recipes for healing, stories of women in our family and ways of being, translating them into colour for cloth, explored through deconstructed traditional Bulgarian garments. I share these fragmented recipes with you.

Our future is embedded in our knowledge of the past. I hope this work can act as an invitation to deepen the intimate relationships we have; between one another, extending into community, place and into the material world.

Portrait by Rita Silva.

I told you, see how everything comes back around — Photograph by Rita Silva

Embrace — Photograph by Rita Silva

A recipe for healing, a remedy for cloth — Process: my grandmother recipes, translated into colour. materials as a non-verbal language. a collection of her recipes, and process images.

Texere — "To knit, weave, to join together or to direct movements in an intricate course." a continuous exchange between people, of recipes, remedies, of ways of being. two hands, intertwined in a thread thread. photograph by Rita Silva.

Tools — ‘Vessel / ˈvɛs əl / 3. A hollow or concave utensil, as a cup, bowl, pitcher, or vase, used for holding liquids or other contents. 6. A person regarded as a holder or receiver of something, especially something nonmaterial: a vessel of grace; a vessel of wrath.’ Bottom + right photograph by Rita Silva.

A recipe, shared — Two recipes, my grandmother's Calendula balm, and a recipe for colour using calendula, with parallel steps. Photograph by Adam Grüning

Embodiment as a method — Moments with my grandmother, a conversation about her great grandmother who was a healer and her grandmother who was a dyer and weaver.

Dressing as an act of care — Text reads: cycle of; deconstruction, reconstruction, life, death, life, old, new, old, new, nothing old, nothing new.

Process — Stills of a 7-step method of preparing a recipe for colour. Photographs by Adam Grüning.

Cукман — Fragmented and deconstructed pattern pieces of part a traditional Bulgarian garment, сукман /sukman/, dyed with plants and herbs my grandmother uses for healing and nourishment; chamomile, calendula, nettle, elderberry, lavender, rose, onion.

remedy for cloth / in colour /

and the body / in healing /

In Collaboration with:

Nadezhda Dimitrova Ivanova

Grandmother

Launch Project

Matrilineal Mythologies

Matrilineal Mythologies is a collaboration between Jesse May Fisher (Contemporary Art Practice) Paola Estrella (Contemporary Art Practice) Katrina Wilde (Textiles) and Rita Silva (Photography). The launch of the collaboration will take place live on the 3rd of July, at 10:30 am BST.

Drawing from previous research anchored in tacit knowledge passed down through maternal lines, each artist brings an offering to the table. Through a cycle of repetition and closure, an embodied conversation is performed. Text, material, sound and the body become conduits for practical magic.

Honouring entangled stories within intimate gestures, the everyday is elevated as current threads of our research are closed.

Medium: Event and video-performance

Collaboration healing Mother Tongues Mythology