Lola Lely

7 Dec

Lola Lely
Aberfeldy Stories: Colours of Home
Installation, 2023

Aberfeldy New Tartan Banner Hemp cloth dyed with pomegranate skins. Screen printed with avocado stones, madder root and ferrous sulphate.

Black Poplar & Catkins Banners, hemp cloth dyed with avocado skin, madder toot, white onion skin and cutch. Printed with oak gall and ferrous sulphate.

Banners pattern inspired by the Black Poplar tree for which the area is named after, a specimen that flourished in the area up until the 1970's, now being re-introduced across the UK.

Poplar Roses Banner, Hemp cloth dyed with red onion skin, printed with madder root and citric acid. Ribbons dyed with avocado skin and annatto. Cloth weather-proofed with wax.

Desire Paths Banner, hemp cloth dyed with red onion skins, oak gall and ferrous sulphate. Ribbons hand-painted with pigment and beeswax.

Desire Paths Banners, inspired by the routes around Aberfeldy green spaces that have been created by humans (and animals) being drawn in the same direction over and over again.

Exterior swatch book marks the location of some of our shop bought ingredients, a chunky bunting, dyed with herbs and spices from the Umars grocery.

Rind & Stone at Poplar Works A work made from kitchen waste. Hemp cloth dyed with pomegranate skins. Screenprinted with avocado stones from the cafe and bordered with ferrous sulphate dyed cloth.

Aberfeldy New Tartan Banner Hemp cloth dyed with pomegranate skins. Screen printed with avocado stones, madder root and ferrous sulphate.

Poplar Roses Banner, Inspired by the roses, both real and artificial, found on Wooster, Ada and Goodway Gardens.

Colours of home swatch book, made in community workshops.

Lely with Poplar Roses Banner print

Colours of home swatch book, made in community workshops.

Community foraging workshops in the parks for local dye stuffs.

Community natural dye workshops at R-Urban.

Public realm curation and commissioning for Ecoworld and Poplar HARCA, ‘Aberfeldy Stories: Colours of Home’ by Lola Lely is a textile art installation that connects and celebrates the local businesses, residents landscape and textile history of Aberfeldy Village.

Hemp cloth banners, naturally dyed, weather-proofed with wax and adorned with tassels made from remnants were installed as a trail across the Village. This low-waste, hyper-localised manufacturing project sought to minimise the environmental impact of a large-scale art installation in the public realm. The patterns included motifs inspired by natural and architectural features of the local area. Key design elements of the banners were produced on-site through a series of free community workshops led by Alisa Ruzavina and Hayley Caine, these included foraging for natural dyeing materials – such as local plants and kitchen waste to create a community colour swatch book – and tassel making. The workshops also held space for knowledge exchange beyond natural dyeing, recipes were swapped and stories from home told.

This thoughtful design and the experimental processes involved not only demonstrated Lely's achievements as a maker whose work focuses on the interconnection between the natural world and material culture, but also created space to reflect on the inherent sustainability of large-scale public art installations, providing a model of how these could be achieved differently in the future.