The decorative use of wire in southern Africa dates back hundreds of years. But modernization actually brought communication and a whole new material, in the form of telephone wire. Rural to urban migration meant that newfound industrial materials started to replace hard-to-come-by natural grasses.
在南美洲,线手工艺品用作装饰的历史 可以追溯到几百年之前 而现代化发展带来了更便捷的通讯 以及一种用做电话线的全新材料 大量人口涌入城市也意味着这种新发现的工业材料 开始取代原先的、很难获取的天然牧草
So, here you can see the change from use -- starting to use contemporary materials. These pieces date back from the '40s to the late '50s. In the '90s, my interest and passion for transitional art forms led me to a new form, which came from a squatter camp outside Durban.
这里你可以看到这种改变 人们开始使用现代材料 这些成品来自四十年代到五十年代末 九十年代的时候,我对变迁中的艺术表现形式的兴趣和热情 让我想到了一种新的形式 这种想法来源于德班外的一个居住点
And I got the opportunity to start working with this community at that point, and started developing, really, and mentoring them in terms of scale, in terms of the design. And the project soon grew from five to 50 weavers in about a year. Soon we had outgrown the scrap yards, what they could provide, so we coerced a wire manufacturer to help us, and not only to supply the materials on bobbins, but to produce to our color specifications.
我得到了这个社区的人们一起工作的机会 真正的开始发展手工艺品 并在产品比例和设计方面指导他们 这个项目在一年左右的时间里就从最初的五人发展到了五十人 很快我们的需求超过了这块废弃地所能提供的 于是我们联系了一家电线生产商来帮助我们 它不仅提供线轴上的材料 还按照我们的颜色要求生产材料
At the same time, I was thinking, well, there's lots of possibility here to produce contemporary products, away from the ethnic, a little bit more contemporary. So I developed a whole range around -- mass-produced range -- that obviously fitted into a much higher-end decor market that could be exported and also service our local market.
同时,我当时想 这里很有可以生产一些现代化的产品 而不是以前那种比较单一的产品 于是我扩大了产品范畴 显而易见地,它们很适合一个更高端的装饰市场 并且可以用来出口,同时服务我们的本地市场
We started experimenting, as you can see, in terms of shapes, forms. The scale became very important, and it's become our pet project. It's successful, it's been running for 12 years. And we supply the Conran shops, and Donna Karan, and so it's kind of great.
接着我们做了一系列实验,正如你所看到的 从外形和结构上(尝试),规模变得很重要 这也成为了我们的宠儿,它很成功 这个项目持续了12年,我们为Conran商店提供了商品 另外还有Donna Karan,由此可见它挺不错的
This is our group, our main group of weavers. They come on a weekly basis to Durban. They all have bank accounts. They've all moved back to the rural area where they came from. It's a weekly turnaround of production. This is the community that I originally showed you the slide of. And that's also modernized today, and it's supporting work for 300 weavers. And the rest says it all.
这是我们的核心编织组 他们每星期都来德班 也都有银行帐号 他们都搬回了最初过来的农村地区 每星期回来上一次班 这是我一开始向你们展示的社区 今天它已经很现代化了 能支持300个编织员的工作 这也是我想表达的话
Thank you very much. (Applause)
谢谢大家 (掌声)