Flax Suite (The Whitechapel Variation Reprised) - Whitechapel Gallery

Flax Suite (The Whitechapel Variation Reprised)

  • Flax Suite @ Whitechapel gallery 9-12-24- image - ©Roswitha Chesher LR-124

    Flax Suite at Whitechapel Gallery, 2024 ©Roswitha Chesher

  • Flax Suite @ Whitechapel gallery 9-12-24- image - ©Roswitha Chesher LR-36

    Flax Suite at Whitechapel Gallery, 2024 ©Roswitha Chesher

  • Flax Suite @ Whitechapel gallery 9-12-24- image - ©Roswitha Chesher LR-178

    Flax Suite at Whitechapel Gallery, 2024 ©Roswitha Chesher

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Free entry

15 May - 15 May 2025

Gallery 2

Monday Closed
Tuesday 11am–6pm
Wednesday 11am–6pm
Thursday 11am–9pm
Friday 11am–6pm
Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–6pm

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London Craft Week Performance and Talk
Flax Suite (The Whitechapel Variation Reprised)

The Flax Exchange performs Flax Suite, a set of making actions exploring folk cultures and labour politics of traditional textile production.

The Flax Exchange is an ongoing community project led by artist Shane Waltener. It advocates sustainable textile practices, with a focus on growing flax from seed to process into linen thread and championing ancient craft techniques through the medium of performance. Sustainable textile processes and soil-to-soil systems have been crafted into a series of live ‘making-actions’ by Shane Waltener and members of the exchange, highlighting the repetitive, rhythmic, musical nature of textile-making that keep the maker rooted in the pattern of production.

Flax Suite (The Whitechapel Variation Reprised) features a reworking of the original Flax Suite, devised as part of a year-long residency in 2023–24 at Craft Central and Poplar Union. This iteration is a variation of a score developed during a four-month residency at Park Primary School, Newham, including song, movement and dance, developed by musician Zoë Gilmour and dance artist Laura Glaser in collaboration with 90 Year 3 pupils. The piece is performed at Whitechapel Gallery with accompanying soundscore by Elisha Lewis.

For Craft Week the performance is followed by a discussion with Shane Waltener, members of The Flax Exchange, Kirsty Lowry (Curator: Schools & Teachers, Whitechapel Gallery) and invited guests. Attendees have the opportunity to process flax into linen thread.

About Flax Exchange

Flax Exchange is a community project led by artist Shane Waltener which originated in Walton-on-the-Naze in 2022, moved to Harwich for the Arts Festival in 2023 and to the Isle of Dogs and Poplar in 2024.

The project was conceived by the artist in partnership with Eleanor Brown at The nOse, a bookshop and project space in Walton.

Flax Exchange advocates sustainable textile practices by engaging local communities in growing their own fabric. It aims to prompt a renewed engagement with natural resources, landscape and environment, remembering and reimagining social histories through traditional and experimental textile making processes.

The project was inspired by soil to soil textile practices and textile fibersheds, a term coined by sustainability campaigner Rebecca Burgess describing networks connecting growers, makers and consumers.

Core to the Flax Exchange is collaboration, conversation, skills exchange and embodied making with regular workshops and rehearsals with community groups, volunteers and now a school.

Commissioned artists in the project so far include dance artist Laura Glaser, musicians Elisha Millard and Otto Willberg as well as performance artist and musician Merlin Nova and musician Zoe Glimour.

#flaxexchange

About Shane Waltener

Shane Waltener is an artist based in London and Essex, whose practice is rooted in ideas of ecology, skills exchange and the sharing of cultural and social histories that relate to craft. With an interest in movement and dance, he explores means of choreographing making through improvisation, score writing and material engagement.

He is co-founder Common Agency Projects with dance artist Laura Glaser, a member of Ambient Jam Ensemble with Entelechy Arts, an associate lecturer at the University of the Arts London and resident artist at Stave Hill Ecological Park.

@shanewaltener

About London Craft Week

London Craft Week is a city-wide festival celebrating exceptional craftsmanship, across multiple sectors and disciplines, from around the world. Through a curated programme of events, Craft Week shines a light on the creative talent behind some of the world’s most beautiful objects, telling stories of their inspiration, process and materials.

londoncraftweek.com