An Emptiness that Breathes, forms part of a continuous artistic body of research into the relation between breath, creation & thought; and how these notions conceptually relate to weaving as a method of making. Mediating between dualities of presence and absence; fullness and emptiness; active and passive; beginning and ending; as well as internalities and externalities, Jana Visser has no intention to juxtapose these notions against one another. Rather, she seeks a logic of reciprocity and becoming through the framework of her weaving practice.
There exists multiple threads of thought; weaving as thinking; weaving as creation; weaving as breathing.
As a continuous and rhythmic motion, breathing functions on a principle of giving and receiving. The inwards and outwards passage of breath provides a symbolic realisation for a reflection on the gestures of weaving which also depends on beginnings and endings, constant rhythms, and the entanglement of seemingly binary forces; the outwards giving horizontal weft and the inwards receiving vertical warp.
Emptiness, as represented by the warp threads, serves as a site of transformation where becoming and potentiality interweave – where sameness and otherness, or warp and weft meet. With a dynamic presence, it indicates the ability to be filled with content. It inhales. For, as long as there is a warp waiting, there is a potential for continuing onwards and a weaving towards possibility.
