TENDERTHREADS: This installation centres on the tactile and emotional potentials of material. Using found textiles and yarn, tenderthreads unfolds as an exploration of how emotion, memory, presence and experience can be woven through the meditative act of crochet. Through the slow, rhythmic, and repetitive process of looping and knotting, web-like structures emerge, holding intimate archives of gesture and duration. Each crocheted thread becomes a record of time, touch, and physical presence, transforming space into one that invites intimacy, vulnerability and contemplation.
Guided by the writings of Elizabeth Grosz and Katve-Kaisa Kontturi, tenderthreads seeks to dismantle traditional divisions between mind and body, art and craft, and the maker and the material world. The work follows the affective agency of fabric and fibre, allowing material to lead the process rather than merely serve it. Through this relationship between material and making, a strong bond is formed, with the labour of love being its driving force. The emotional dialogue between artist and materials allows intuition to guide the formation of these intricate crochet realms.
Sarah Gulline is a Tasmanian artist based in Naarm/Melbourne whose practice explores emotional and embodied connections between material, maker and viewer. Working across various disciplines such as painting and textile installations, she investigates how tactile engagement and the labour of creative processes can express emotional growth, connection and care. Her process-driven, haptic approaches draw from feminist, psychoanalytic and materialist theory, emphasising the significance of embodied, emotional labour and the agency of materials in shaping meaning. Guided by Elizabeth Grosz’s Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (2020), Gulline responds to the traditional hierarchies that privilege mind over body and the masculine over feminine. By incorporating traditionally feminine techniques such as crochet, she reclaims the undervalued forms of making. She highlights the significance of embodied, emotional labour through the repetitive and reflective process of crochet. This practice creates crocheted web-like elements that work like tactile networks. Her installation tenderthreads, functions as a space where care, vulnerability and material presence intersect. By using this physical installation, Gulline challenges gendered assumptions in art and honours the strength of tactile, process-based practices.