Meet Lydia May Hann
Meet Lydia May Hann, costume designer and textile artist who has been in residency at Velferden in April 2024!
During this period, she worked with wool from Norwegian wild sheep, donated by a local farmer from Sokndal. The wool from Norwegian wild sheep is considered "undesirable" and much of the wool sheared each year is discarded to rot or burned.
(see video of the felting process at the bottom of the page)
She herself writes about her stay:
"At Velferden, I pondered the wool in parallel with taking in the mining landscape and the landfill. The landfill is a 6 million ton monument to perceived value and sacrifice; a thumbprint from the pressures of global trade, but also a symbol of a specific, enriched and vibrant society and community.
During my stay at Velferden, I worked with the wool spontaneously, absorbing the power and physicality of the landscape and communicating it through my work with felting, spinning and knitting. Wool sheared from a sheep retains the shape of the sheep and can thus be felted into a kind of replica of the animal - intact with all its mountainous variations of colors and textures. The felting technique thus preserves what the sheep itself grew, and is combined with the artistic expression of nature. Spinning and knitting is a treatment of the fibers; just as titanium dioxide is "spun" from dark stone, from something rough and dirty to something white, controlled and uniform.
Part of this process is separating the fluffy wool from the long guard hairs that protect the Norwegian wild sheep from the elements, but are also the source of their rejection because these hairs are difficult to work with. Spinning with the guard hairs takes longer and requires more care than wool roving, but it's a reminder not to write off the waste product if you can.
In the end, two stories found their way into my periphery and drew out characters in the wool that concluded my visit; the eyes of the mountain looking down through the studio window. And the hands clutching the miners' banner in a universal symbol of friendship.
The wool shaped itself, felted with the help of sand and gravity knocking it down the side of the landfill (an anecdote; the wool has to be rolled about 600 times to felt solid), and found its eyes in the spectrum of tones in the wool. The tab house represents the struggle of communities built around a dangerous toil, an association linked to suffering familiar to miners through the ages, but also the trauma that comes with its loss. It is a hand reaching out from the dunes and from the rock; a hand reaching for help, salvation, in gratitude or friendship, or all of these things at once, and Welfare is a place where its call can be answered."
Photo © Lydia May Hann
::::::::MORE ABOUT LYDIA MAY HANN:::::::
Lydia May Hann is a British textile artist and costume designer working with Norwegian wool to engage with landscapes and stories. She is a recent graduate of the MA Design program at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. As the granddaughter of a miner in County Durham, she is interested in the ghosts of toil in the landscape and finding ways to bring out their stories. Lydia has, among other things, exhibited at the National Museum in Oslo with a work where Norwegian sheep wool was at the center.
