Last week I have written about my experiences when starting to search for the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef: The Föhr Reef in the Föhr Museum of Art of the Western Coast during our holidays on the island.
What I described in that first post was the status quo of Tuesday last
week, when I had been to the museum and sort of acquiesced to the fact that our
timing had been bad, that I was not able to participate actively in the
project, and that I would not even get to see it finished. Though my husband
did jokingly suggest that he and my son take the train home as planned, and I
could stay a day longer to go to the opening of the show – but I knew that was
a teaser, not a real or serious offer.
But on Thursday
morning I met one of the women who had been at the ticket desk when I visited
the museum, and we started chatting. I told her about my fascination with what
fragments I had seen, and my woes of not getting to see the finished reef ‘for
real’. She started praising how wonderful it looked now, just a couple of days
later, when the parts had been completely assembled and the American segments
had also been installed, how the excitement amongst the museum employees was
rising, and that one of the initiators, Margaret Wertheim had already flown in.
Then she told me that there would be a press conference on Friday afternoon.
Perhaps I would want to try to sneak in on that? But she could not play an
active part in getting me in as she would be helping out in the kitchen that
day.
That’s when
my heart started racing. Every once in a while I do free-lance work for our
local newspaper – so in a way I am legible to be present at a press conference
like that. The only problem is that I don’t hold a press identification card.
Would they accept my word?
I tried to
call the newsroom at home - it was a
holiday in Bavaria,
nobody was working or would answer the phone. I sent an e-mail, explaining the
whole situation, and asking whether they could call the museum and sign me up
for the press conference. They called me back Friday morning, while my son and
I were on a boat trip to the seal resting places on sandbanks off the island,
saying it had all been arranged, I was being expected.
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Seals resting on sandbanks during low tide in the Wadden Sea |
Right after
we returned from the trip to the seals, my husband took over my son, I jumped
on our rental bike and headed for the museum, inbetween heavy duty rain
showers.
A wonderful ride that was and I remember thinking to myself when I got
off the bike “That was sooo nice, riding here with that gorgeous light, and in
anticipation of getting to see the reef!”
The museum's outside wall was now covered with the new poster announcing the exhibition.
I went into
the museum, approached the font desk in a surprisingly empty room and was
greeted with “how may I help you?” I introduced myself and said that I had come
for the press conference and that I had been signed up by telephone only this
morning. He looked at me sternly and said: “The press conference was at twelve
and everything is closed off now because they are interviewing and filming. The
official opening is tomorrow, you can come back then.”
Do I need
to describe my feeling of disappointment? I pleaded – no, absolutely no chance
to go in, the TV people did not want anybody disturbing them. I insisted – and
again, and finally he conceded that he would talk to the project director when
she reappeared from being interviewed. But he did not promise me anything, nor
could he tell me how long I might have to wait, it might be up to two hours.
I sat down
in the museum café and ordered a cup of tea. After forty minutes Ms. Heims appeared,
and after more disguised pleading on my side finally agreed to give me a quick
short tour of the exhibition half an hour later.
More tea,
and then an interesting looking and English speaking woman appeared in the
restaurant, I heard her talking to the waitress and could help out with a few
translations. And then I realized who this must be and approached Margared
Wertheim.
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Margaret Wertheim, photo taken from the internet |
She was very open and kindly talked to me for quite a while, telling
me a lot about the whole project.
Margaret
Wertheim is a physicist in training but decided to go into science journalism
after finishing her first degree, instead of continuing a career in academic
science. Her journalistic life has been dedicated to making the frequently
difficult topics of science understandable and accessible for
non-scientifically oriented people. Which was the driving force behind her
foundation of the Institute for Figuring, and which was also how she came
across Daina Taimina's hyperbolic crochet patterns. This was at the same time when a lot
of concern was being voiced about the threats to the environment due to
pollution, and about the impending mass destruction of coral reefs due to
global warming. Together with her sister and a few friends “in our living room”
they started making a hyperbolic crochet coral reef to raise the public’s
awareness about the dangers to coral reefs, and put a note about it on their
internet site. “Within a few weeks of publication of this notice, when not a
whole lot had been finished yet, we received a call from the Andy Wharhol
museum that they were putting together a show on artists’ responses to global
warming, and would we be able to make a contribution to this show. That’s when
it took off,” Margaret recalled. “We had to finish something then, and this
Föhr Reef now is about the twelfth exhibition in a museum we have had.”
She is
rather disappointed that the scientific world has not responded to the project
at all, neither in recognition nor in funding. Instead, she has received comments
such as “It’s just a bunch of women knitting.” However, the response of the art
world has been overwhelming, and she hopes that a publisher will be found in the
near future so that a book can be published that covers all the various aspects
that are combined in the project.
And then I
did get to see the complete Föhr Reef, guided by the project director of the
museum, Ms. Heims. She explained the history of the project in detail, and told
me about the new feelings of community that the participating women had
developed, who now want to continue their regular meetings even though the reef
as such is finished. And I was allowed to take “official photos” – although my
little camera was far from up to this occasion, and these photos do not nearly
communicate the overall effect when one stands in the room and gets to look at
the various pieces of the exhibition.
There are a
few segments of the American reef, including a segment that shows “dead
corals”, with crochet lace at the top which was made in China, by unnamed women
who do not even know that their products have been included in this piece of
art.
Another is
made from beads, but also using the hyperbolic principles involved in the
crochet pieces.
One segment
takes up the problem of plastic refuse that pollutes the oceans in that it is
made entirely from plastic rejects and junk.
The fantasy
of the participating women was impressively visible in the details:
It was an
overwhelming experience.
Thank you, Margaret Westheim, for talking to me
about the project in such detail, and to Ms. Heims, for giving me this personal
tour.