Prikking vastgeregen op een dubbele lap katoen en met traceerdraden voor het maken van een deel van een kraag van naaldkant c. 1915s

This is a piece of laced cotton, made by a Belgian internee in Amersfoort, we don’t know exactly when. There’s something so tender about the visible process of making, it’s like seeing someone’s thought process laid bare. The blue cotton is pierced with tiny holes, a constellation of intent, as if the maker is mapping out a secret garden. You can almost feel the maker’s hand as they traced and stitched, creating this fragment for a collar. The delicate stitching looks like it would unravel with a gentle tug; a metaphor, perhaps, for how fragile life can be. And yet the precision and care taken here transforms something ordinary into something precious. It reminds me of the work of Ree Morton, an artist who also embraced process and the handmade, and elevated the everyday into something extraordinary. Art is, after all, a conversation, a sharing of ideas across time.