Vineta Gailite

Discovery of Kreenholm Cotton factory upon arrival to Narva

It was very eerie to walk around secured territory of 19th century largest cotton factory in Russian empire, then nearly destroyed by wars, then rebuild by workers of nearby work camp in early communism. Also red brick architecture of original factory buildings for no accident seamed familiar to me as I lived 16 years in Manchester, also cotton capital at the time for the whole world, as architects did come from Manchester to help and build cotton mills of Kreenholm over river Narva. Now abandoned factory lays on the border between Russia and EU, it’s easy to lean over the fence and look into Russia such very powerful and controversial state. It felt at the reach of a hand but so very far and frightening as memories of 90ties when Latvia same as Estonia was regaining their freedom and common sense of excitement and fear of Russia was nations’ consciousness.

*couple people from Narva Sotsiaaltöökeskus, who later attended weaving workshops, remembered working at the Kreenholm factory about 20 years ago on machines making thread, and shared their memories of training and accidents with automated Soviet era machinery.

Geodesic dome construction and Self-supporting structure workshop

First after settling in the Residency NART, I spend couple days constructing a geodesic dome at the Kreenholm Plants community garden, as rest of the time was gonna be spend running workshops in connection to this dome. Hazel rods for the dome traveled all the way from Latvia to Narva, Estonia.

I run two workshops teaching about building a self-supporting frame:

One with people from local Social-care day centre for people with mental heath issues and carers,

Second was Facebook event open to anyone in Narva, but attended by those familiar with NART residency space.

Workshop: Basic loom and weaving with plants

I constructed a simple loom using hazel sticks and threaded in preparation for workshops with Narva Sotsiaaltöökeskus Maslovi3 (Social-help day centre working with neurodiverse clients).

Loom was used to teach basic weaving technique with plants gathered around the Kreenholm Plants garden, also in making of a rug from combed linen and hemp fibers.

Making of a weatherproof cover for the geodome

It was my personal challenge at the residency to sew a cover for the geodesic dome I brought over from Latvia to leave as shelter in Kreenholm Plants garden. But for a structure to become a ‘shelter’ it needs a cover or in other words roof. I did have to negotiate with local residents about having it covered because there was fear that something looking like a tent will attract drinkers and with will come rubbish. There for I choose just to have top covered with no walls so not to encourage sleepovers. I tried to stick with natural materials and for most part used oilcloth: cotton covered in bees wax to hold off the rain.