projects
my ongoing textile wall drawings project
This project focuses on site specific and site responsive handcrafted textile drawings.
They consider integral elements of the world around me: aspects of maps, parts of floorplans or details of buildings- these are the starting points for works that serve as a vehicle for exploring their visually formal qualities. I am trying to realize the singularity of each work through persistent refinements of research, material selection, and construction.
There is a long period of research and experimentation in these works, and the install is always a surprise and can be a physical challenge. Some works take hours, others many days to install with humble steel pins or nails, all hammered by hand. The stringing out often needs to be repeated to engage the tension of the works and to emphasise the encounter of the work within the architecture.
It is drawing that emerges as the crucial aspect of my practice, the initial site of translation, where I transform the prosaic into something more captivating.
d- 1531, 2020
hand knitted nylon cord, pins
273 x 450 cm
Deloitte offices Melbourne
d- 1531 is a dynamic site-specific textile wall drawing which was commissioned for the new Deloitte office in Melbourne.
The hand knitted form relates to the map of the floorplan of Level 31- it expresses the corridors and areas of navigation that link the meeting rooms within the site. These areas define places of movement within the site, they are crucial to its use, and are often felt as subtle and peripheral to the experience of working within the space. The abstracted form expresses their importance within the architectural relationships of the site and inspires viewers to map their own use of these transitional spaces.
d- 1531 has a clue like a coordinate used in a map (position 15, level 31) and the d could be deloitte and also my initial. The letter is a nod to the great Modernist architect Eileen Gray who I admire. Her first architectural project E1027 is highly regarded as one of the great buildings of the Modernist period.
I admire her designs and sensibility. She was incredibly talented, private, underestimated, determined and remarkable.
ll & lll, 2017
hand knitted cotton, fluorescent paint, steel pins
various dimensions
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
20.03 - 17.06.2018
from Heide text 'Dana Harris’s meticulously handcrafted artworks are made in response to specific locations.
In ll & lll Harris has worked with the architecture of Heide, developing an installation that is site specific and site sensitive- it draws upon the experimental aspects of the space, light and geometry of the Heide ll and Heide lll buildings. Using various traditional textile techniques Harris innovatively constructs works that are akin to three-dimensional drawings.
Audiences will experience Dana’s work as a reconfiguration of the architectural space, which has differing heights and planes, through a fine skein of glowing lines stretched across the upper walls and ceiling. These stringlines relate to the use of vanishing points in architectural drawings and invite the viewer to experience both a literal reading and an abstract interpretation of the Heide spaces. The installation is located in the ramp near the Central Galleries entrance.'
you are here, 2014-2015
hand knitted cotton. steel pins
various dimensions
More love hours: Contemporary artists and craft
Curated by Suzette Wearne
The Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne
22nd July - 11th October 2015
you are here is a large, site-specific installation of a hand knitted map of the pathways of the Parkville campus of Melbourne University.
This installation reduced the site of the campus to a line drawing, marking all the transits that although used daily, are often unexamined. There was no hierarchy, no description of the architecture, or of the faculties, all of these details were deleted in the work, instead it focused and revealed the interconnections within the site and its parameters. Exhibited on the third level of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, it connected with a stringline wall drawing which spanned across the 3-storey atrium of the Museum. Viewers became part of the work, their presence was central to the landscape, and their movement within the space of the Museum was also considered integral within the work.
commute, 2014
cotton thread
various dimensions
Art This Way: Visual Art Weekend
Melbourne
August 2014
commute, from an ongoing series: my landscape project, was installed in the window at the flagship Akira Isogawa fashion store in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy as part of Yarra Councils creative initiative ‘Art this Way’ in 2014.
This public artwork is a hand-knitted installation mapping the two tram routes between my home and Akira, where I was employed part time. It tracked my regular trip through the urban environment from Brunswick to Fitzroy, each street hand knitted, each tram stop marked by a strand of cotton yarn that was pulled taut and spanned into the space of the window, transforming two dimensions into three dimension.
The work expresses my interest in analyzing progress and movement in an effort to survey both repetition and macro and micro dimensions within a public art framework. The work was spotlit at night with access 24 hrs daily and the reflection of the daily life of Gertrude St was captured in the work in the store window.
location, 2009
handknitted cotton rope
various dimensions
Winner of the 2009 Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition and Awards
Yering Station, Yarra Glen
25th October - 5th December 2009
Measuring 6 metres in length, location is my first exterior large-scale installation, handknitted using fine cotton rope.
I installed it on the historic barn at Yering Station and stretched and attached it out onto the landscape. It surveys the pathways of the site, relating to the location map that is installed on the Yering Station property. I am interested in mapping spatial relationships relative to scale, site and myself. I am obsessed with the discrepancy between the information on the map and what it seeks to represent.
future plan is part of my proto project, which began in 2008.
hand knitted cotton and wool, steel pins
various dimensions
In this project, I am attempting to create abstract spaces and expand the drawing on the wall, activating the architecture and the site in each installation of the work. Hand-knitted, this work relates to a plan of a fictitious space. It examines scale and connectiveness and reveals my constant dreams of maps and places in my memory. The method of production and the time it took to create this work is embedded in the textile- all the spaces, all the stitches are markers of time and memory.