Tera- A Star

তেরা

Handwoven Installation and Archival imagery

2021

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Tera- A Star, explores the grieving process and its connections to using craft as a therapeutic outlet. Weaving together archival images forming 66 years of Tera’s life became a very poignant way of storytelling. Tales of forgotten history in these images that have been lost with her- together bound with fragments of fabric- a memory left in the saree.

Waves of grief come in many stages and this healing time becomes a journey, channelled into this woven installation. Weaving itself, a process reliant on practise, patience and method becomes an unrestricted freeform and freedom explored with each strip. Each strip becomes a small affirmation for these thoughts and feelings, portrayed with the images at present.

Letting the design for this piece develop instinctively, to weave becomes to heal.

The historical tendency that textile making has served as a central and functional role for women, becomes the power of representation in Tera- A Star. Using these notions of fibre making, whist channelling grief into a physical formation, Yasmin uses weaving as a coping mechanism to heal these emotional scars left behind from the passing of her grandmother, Tera.

This is one of 40 new projects taking place across 40 arts centres as part of Here and Now, a national and local celebration of culture within communities. Supported by Arts Council England and Future Arts Centres, marking the National Lottery’s 25th birthday.

Installation images from Solo show at MAC Birmingham 2021.
Images by Tegen Kimbley