with every sinew

With every sinew: Speculative Craft as Material Resistance. In their upcoming exhibition, Bristol-based artists; Ben Hartley & Cassie Ireland present speculative craft as a site of resistance.

BRISTOL, UK. Opening night 16th April, The Launderette presents with every sinew, a duo exhibition featuring the individual and collaborative works of Ben Hartley and Cassie Ireland. Through a process of "speculative craft," Hartley and Ireland reclaim a handworked past as a radical form of resistance against the effortless, friction-less output of a machine-made reality. By grafting salvaged automotive components into cured animal hides and weaving electrical cables into traditional basketry, the artists repurpose industrial debris, folding industrial by-products and waste back into the intimate proximity of human care. The exhibition functions as a site of tension where the rhythmic cadence of the working hand confronts the cold rigidity of mass production. Throughout the gallery, quiet, ritual acts of labour are evidenced in the binding of arrowheads to hides and hand-knit gossamer nets that entrap weighted rabbit skins. The artists engage in a subversion of material properties, linking the visceral history of the animal pelt to the predatory nature of modern consumerism. Ben Hartley’s floor-based mats, though composed entirely of industrial electrical wiring, adopt the form of soft furnishings. The intricate weave suggests a domestic softness that directly contradicts the grey, synthetic coldness of the material: a physical manifestation of the dissonance found in modern consumer environments. Cassie Ireland’s work centres on a hand-sewn "stab vest" made from rabbit skin. Intricately painted and delicately constructed, this garment—defined by its resistance to trauma—is reimagined as "spiritual armour." It suggests a strength found in vulnerability, forged from a visceral memory of violence. Ireland’s painted iconography depicts hounds and deer locked in an ancient cycle of pursuit, a metaphor for the cyclical nature of destruction and renewal inherent in both the natural world and the industrial machine. The appearance of deer-human hybrids suggests a shapeshifting capacity, offering a perspective that exists outside of a human-centric, extractive logic. By adapting traditional techniques; weaving, carving, and sewing and grafting them to the by-products of industry, Hartley and Ireland establish a connection to a collective, ancestral pulse. with every sinew is an invitation to witness the hand of the maker as a mechanism of resistance against material extraction and digital automation. Exhibition Details Dates: 17th April - 19th April - Gallery Hours: 12:00 - 17:00 Preview Evening: Join us for the opening night Thursday 16th April, 6-9pm

What to expect:
Painting, Mixed media, Design / Fashion, Crafts, Drawing, Sculpture, Multi-disciplinary, Installation