Invited to the Primitive Art Sense Festival in Shinano Omachi, I receive boxes full of old kimonos to work on. Wearing kimonos has gone out of fashion here too; like all other countries, the country is flooded with inferior clothing that is manufactured under the worst conditions. Unfortunately, most kimonos are made of synthetic materials. However, they are all lovingly put together by hand using a simple stiching technique. Together with festival staff, we take these kimonos apart, which can be broken down into wide strips thanks to their rectangular construction. Over the course of the residency, I then weave two gigantic “snakes” from the textile strips, on which two snakes (a red fire snake and a blue water snake) become visible. They embody the primal forces of nature, which, however, cannot exist without each other. I call the work: Thetis' fate – Waste and Merit. Thetis was a daughter of Oceanos (Ocean) and Gaia (Earth) and could transform her form into fire, water and a snake. As an ambivalent deity, she represents the opposites of nature, the creation and destruction of life and habitats, protection from dangers and the inevitable arbitrariness of fate.
 
I try to keep traditions with my crafting by demonstrating the quality, colors and feel of the kimonos in my work, but at the same time I also destroy the originals. In workshops, in the spirit of the Primitive Sense Art Festival, I show simple weaving and braiding techniques of various indigenous tribes all over the world, thanks to which the participants learn to reuse their own worn-out clothing and thus help to reduce the heeps of textile waste on the globe. At the festival, we work together with the audience on a large piece that is made on a loom using a technique that is at least 10,000 years old.
This work and a woven picture remain in Shinano Omachi in the hands of Tatsuki and Onishi Jiro.
Other small braided works are made by the festival visitors and taken home. Two small works were auctioned off by visitors to the festival. After the festival, the 6 m long “Thetis” - snake remains outdoors in Yamaoka Village, a holiday resort in the middle of nature, hanging from a tall chestnut tree.
A tapestry (Fibonacci-Japan) that I weave from the old clothing of the organizers and other employees (I get 25-year-old T-shirts from the festival director's student days) will be exhibited together with works by other festival artists in the North Alps Viewing Museum of Arts, Nagano.