Soft Girl

Soft Girl is a knitted sculpture that I have constructed between November 2019 and September 2021. She consists of layers of knitted shapes that are sewn onto each other to create a low relief on the front and the back of the figure, while maintaining its flat nature. It is a rather odd and limiting way of building a body, and I am interested in it since it allows me to explore just how much I can stretch this method and medium. Although I have studied human anatomy, here I am interested in setting that knowledge aside as much as is possible, and receiving all the information on the topography of the body purely through observation. When simply looking, without trying to understand or make structural sense of the body, all those overlapping forms and bulges take on an intense strangeness, some appear familiar, while others make absolutely no structural sense on her boneless body. I knit each shape as I see it and sew it onto the figure in layers overlapping each other, seeking to make it as tactile and true to what I see as the material allows in its own way.

Since the sculpture is soft and malleable, she is able to move and act in a much more dynamic state than a sculpture made of a solid material, which led me to play with her through photography and stop motion animation. The videos I record are simple acts, casual instances of what I would imagine a flat knitted body would experience and do throughout the day. I make sure to move the sculpture without breaking her out of her flatness, making her move under the pressure of gravity, flaccidly sliding over surfaces, and not lifting her limbs. It is an ongoing project, to which I add new videos or photographs as I get to know Soft Girl better.