Freddie Robins exhibition "Fiction and Function" at the Artifex gallery of VAA

2014 09 12 — 2014 09 27
Author Echo Gone Wrong
Published in Events in Lithuania

Freddie poster

On 12-27  September, the Artifex gallery of the Vilnius Academy of Arts will host Fiction and Function, an exhibition by Royal College of Art London professor Freddie Robins. The opening of the exhibition will take place at 6 PM on 12 September. Freddie Robins will also be hosting a workshop for students from September 24 to 26.

Freddie Robins’ work goes beyond the categories of art, crafts and design. The artist uses the form of knitting to explore themes of the domestic, gender, the human condition and the cultural attitudes that surround the craft. With her work she seeks to destroy the preconceived notions that trail after the craft of knitting and label it as passive and benign. A sense of humour, fear and an almost obsessively perfectionist quality of execution often converge in her pieces.

The titles the artist chooses for these pieces are an inextricable part of her art. Robins likes to indulge in wordplay in order to give her audience visual clues. Fiction and Function is a presentation of various pieces she has created over the past ten years using different knitting techniques (hand-knitting, knitting with domestic knitting machines and industrial automated machines), all united under a common theme probing the concepts of conformity and normality.

The artist herself describes the significance of knitting in her art: “I do not knit what I see, but rather what I feel. Knitting is my way of interpreting, communicating and coming to terms with, the world that we inhabit. It sits between me and my internal world and the physical world around me like some form of knitted comfort blanket. Function is a fiction in our desire to knit. However the emotional function of knitting is another matter all together. In this exhibition I will reflect upon my own knitted works and my use of knitting to explore and communicate my thoughts about perfection, death, motherhood, gender inequality and what it is to be human.”

Freddie Robins is a professor at Royal College of Art London as well as an active participant and curator of various international exhibitions. Freddie Robins will host a creative workshop from September 22 to 26 at the Vilnius Academy of Art during which she will share her experience with the students of the Textile Department.

Artifex Gallery of the Vilnius Academy of Art (Gaono g. 1, Vilnius)
Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 12-6 PM, Saturday 12-5 PM