The Central Museum of Textiles is a former textile factory and was established to commemorate the long history Lodz has with the manufacture of cotton fabrics. In the 19th century it was decided Lodz would be a textile center for the region with hundreds of factories starting throughout the city. This existed until other markets such as China and India proved to be cheaper sources of material during the next century.
Long since abandoned, numerous factory sites still exist in Lodz. The first factory, the White Factory began in 1835 and was owned by Ludwig Geyer. In 1952 this first textile factory was converted into the Central Museum of Textiles.
With Suzanne's solo exhibition at this venue, she chose to create a temporary "new textile factory". With the assistance of 12 art students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, they worked a total of 250 hours over a week to create a new kind of textile for a new Lodz.
Using local newspaper, Suzanne used her signature technique of changing the cast off into something new. Via a process of "spinning and knitting" the cast off newspapers became what the artist referred to as a magic carpet.
This site specific installation utilizes the architecture of the space and the social context of the place to help formulate her idea for this site specific installation which she entitled "Magic Carpet Ride".The piece was approximately 80 feet long and 8 feet wide and while it harkens back to the textile tradition with the creation of a carpet, this carpet does not resemble it's historic predecessors in any other way. The exhibit will be up through March 27.
View photos and read about the installation in Polish (or you can use the handy translation tool): http://www.muzeumwlokiennictwa.pl/czasowe/1/413,suzanne-morlock-magic-carpet-ride.html
