Tracing Together is the Summer artistic commission by digital art collective Compiler, developed through a series of drop-in workshops with the local community.
This commission responds to the exhibition’s theme of Desire Lines, which is when a new path is created instead of following one that already exists.
Picking up threads from the Spring commission Tender Women by Sahra Hersi, the theme of Desire Lines is explored through an interest in the history of cross-stitch embroidery, such as Palestinian Tatreez and similar practices from other cultures. Tracing Together explores these as a precursor to digital image-making. Reconsidering the power of repeatable designs as a way of preserving cultural identity and connection to place.
Inspired by low-resolution, small-file digital images, Compiler invited people local to the Women’s Museum to create patterns and motifs that speak to personal journeys, overlooked routes, places and things that matter to them in the local area. Workshop participants encoded places, stories, or feelings into a collective digital tapestry, now presented in Tracing Together, an installation of LED screens that visualise points of connection and traces left for others.
At a time when the mass sharing of high-resolution visuals online, driven by big-tech platforms, is becoming increasingly harmful to the planet due to power consumption, Tracing Together revisits slower, low-impact image-making practices that continue to endure.
Compiler is a digital art collective led by Tanya Boyarkina and Oscar Cass-Darweish. The group's creative practice explores social and political challenges in digital culture. They aim to create accessible works and events for audiences with different skills, knowledge and abilities to better understand emerging digital technologies.