Viva Basket!

Is the name of an event that took place last week in the border town of Cieszyn, in Poland.

Organised by Serfenta in collaboration with Norwegian partners, it is part of a wider project to research baskets and makers in both countries and it brought together outdoor installations, exhibitions and an international conference. I was invited along with Jette Mellgren, JanJohansen and Carlos Fontales to create outdoor pieces.  Jette and Jan worked on the (northern) Polish side of the border and Carlos and I worked in a small public park with a pond full of water lilies in the Czech Republic! In reality it was only a footbridge without  formalities that separated the two teams.

Strapping tape was sourced for us from Castorama, by the car load.......

Photo courtesy of Serfenta.

and we combined it with willows to create a ‘fountain’ of plaited hearts (me) and clusters of random woven ‘parasols’ (Carlos).

The installation of the ‘fountain’ could not have been achieved without the help of the brave Marek Malesza – the pond had some big fish in it! My thanks go to him, also to Paulina Adamska Malesza, Ania Krezelok and everyone else at Serfenta for all their hard work on this event and for inviting me to be a part of it.