Treadling A Lost Journey
Treadling A Lost Journey
- with songs for what we have lost
in our lives
2021
wood, metal, treadle sewing machine, video, sound
5'x8'x4' (each set)
See the video trailer of installation
Read an article on Apollo Magazine
Treadling A Lost Journey is an interactive kinetic installation that consists of two treadle sewing machines, wooden wheels, sound and video. A viewer would operate the treadle which is connected with two wooden wheels attached on a wooden stand in the space created by a projected video. Video shows the pilot view of train running through a tunnel or a snowy landscape. Songs that I collected from people are played from inside of the sewing machine table. Those songs are what the participants chose to sing for what they had lost in their lives.
This work was created and presented for an exhibition "Sounds Like Home -Longing and Comfort through Lullabies" curated by Duygu and Bengü Gün at SOMArts in San Francisco.
In the end corner of sunny room in my family's old house, there was my mother's treadle. The house was built in a traditional style with wood and plaster, and the air was filled with stably balanced mixture of accumulated dust, moisture, smell and fragrance. When my mother was not sewing, the sewing machine was down into the table and the leather belt was disengaged, and I used to sit and foot press the treadle for hours. I sometimes sat on the floor and hand pressed it. Responding to my action, the wheel kept running freely, fast and slow, and brought me to many different imaginary places one after another, going through tunnels and mountains. Having a large sunny space behind me, the wall behind the treadle was so dark and looked endlessly deep. Foot treadled wheels were rolling through the seam between different worlds that kept appearing out and disappearing into the wall.
Song contributors:
Alyssa Kim, Amanela+Dahlia Kelly, Ana Staroswiecki, Arezoo Islami, Asako Shimazaki, Bobb Drake, Daiane Lopes Da Silva, Ernesto Staroswiecki, Heather Rykowski, Hillary Eichingr, Ida Times, Ilian Brodziak, Jamee Aroma, Jennifer Frazier, Jiawei Xu, Jiayu He, Julie Herrin, Kirstie Chapman, Maria + Sarah Joslyn-O'Rourke, Martha Walker, Matt O'Brien, Nicolas Held, Olive Staroswiecki, Pamela Vllarta + Rail Palancare, Poco Tan, Ralph Rice, Roberta Berg, Sariamangala N Machiraju, Shuang Feng, Tiare Ribeaux, and Yuhe Yao
Arduino Programing:
Niki Selken https://nikiselken.com
Projected Video:
LDEGM Trainspotter
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkFIq5CUPFTi2OnSZqPktaw
Reece at RMTransit
https://www.youtube.com/c/RMTransit/