The Weaver
UAE, 2024
The Weaver (temporary title) ia an artistic intervention, inspired by the ancestral tradition of Emirati’s Al Sadu, and its weaving process/tecnique. The installation is concieved as a landmark, an ephemaral and potentially endless sculpture that provides shelter, shading, a gathering environment and a visual/physical connection between two ideal places. The Al Sadu is a paradigm for flexibility, being used for Emirati’s tent elevations or as a comfortable surface to sit on as well. While working on “Formation of Soof”, there were several inputs that triggered Milk Train’s imagination. Specificly, the portable loom used for weaving the threads, was percieved as the ideal design object, shaped by generations of weavers and a mobile purpose. In particular Milk Train was inspired by a specific phase in the weaving process: that moment when the vertical threads are all aligned and parallel and, through the use of a spacer (made with a gazelle’s horn or wood), the weaver creates a gap (that has a rhomboidal silhouette if percieved from the side), to let the horizontal threads pass trough and be locked together. Milk Train’s proposal is driven by this moment/shape. Design’s aim is to create an hephemeral architectural-sized sculpture, reminiscent of the weaving process.