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samira vogel
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Becoming thread, becoming line

Graduation work Master of Arts Sandberg Instituut 
Amsterdam  |  2022

Interactive weaving installation, handspun linen, hanging bricks audio, video



The installation offers an insight into the processing of the flax plant into woven linen. Being part of the linen project in the Netherlands I learnt about the traditions of cultivating fabric and what it means to be committed to collective care and work.

Entering the thread space, the visitor makes contact with a history of materials and labor. Threads are held in tension by the weight of bricks which were found in the linen field. Whoever chooses to weave may pick up a thread and choose a part in the weaving to continue. The memories of producing the linen thread are woven into the installation in sound, small speakers in between the bricks; emitting the discoveries, complaints, and laughter of the collaborators as they turned the soil, retted the flax








Sowing the seeds,
one hand per row.
Something to grow
and nurture.
An invitation to care.





Narration, in drawn or written form, starts from a line;
with the forming of letters, the line becomes a
building block for texts.
The striation of nature into the thread,
and from there as a
building element to weave fabric,
or as a binding element
to stitch and patch things together.





The surface being built while making,
thread by thread growing,
row after row.
Weaving as building.




The line as a path through two or more points,
derived from the event of a thread.



The field as an archive.
Flax sown in rows,
as horizontal lines drawn into the soil.
Handspun linen vertically suspended,
held in tension by broken bricks.
A loom in space forms.



The word ‘line’
from Latin linea: linen thread,
the longer fiber of flax.
Before the line, there was the thread.