Warped and Wasted – Alice-Marie Archer

Alice-Marie Archer’s practice is a craft-led exploration of our entangled relationships with nature, ritual, and the future. Through ceramics, knitting, and basketry, her large-format installations bridge ancestral (craft) practices with future-facing narratives.

www.alicemariearcher.wordpress.com
@alicemariearcherstudio

Artist statement for Warped and Wasted

‘Developed from waste materials gathered relationally – in phase with the subtle flows of my environment – this piece is formed from Somerset willow offcuts and skinned in knitted Alpaca found on the side of the road in Bristol, and then dressed in raw sheep fleece sourced from Elm Tree farm in Bristol. Speaking to the material heritage of Somerton, I sourced these materials, poised at the edge of discard, to ravel into presence: a sculptural volume enlisting the skill of basket maker, Lewis Prosser. Inspired by concepts of energy cycling from permaculture, in making this work I concerned myself with making at the cusp of wastage for these materials – and asking myself at what point is a material no longer good enough to be used for something else? And how can we intervene in this material cycle? How can these states of waste be transcended and waste rendered material for another process?’