When was the last time you actually had fun at an art exhibition? Never, you say? My prescription: a spell at Speedwell Projects, where artist Pamela Moulton has filled the space with “Forest,” an installation that is a joyous, lush and interactive sylvan fantasia (through Jan. 5). “Exhibition” seems inadequate to describe what is more of an experience that brings together fiber art and installation with forays into performance.

“Forest” is intended to evolve daily as viewers interact with it. Moulton is there sewing, pulling fiber fillings out of rope, cutting leaves from lengths of felt, twisting, tying and knotting strips of fabric, and otherwise manipulating fibers to create thousands of elements that viewers are invited to reconfigure on the walls in any way they like. There are also elements they can wear – such as a collar of what appear to be fabric seed pods – while they experiment and play. And there’s a “makers’ table” where viewers can create elements for “Forest” themselves. All the while, various scents waft and bird sounds echo through Speedwell.

“Forest” draws on a legacy originating in the 1960s and ’70s, when artists like Lenore Tawney were commissioned to create large-scale fiber art works to enliven the coolly cavernous spaces of modernist buildings. These pieces, both freestanding and immersive, featured what was traditionally considered women’s work – weaving, sewing, crocheting, knitting and so on – but transformed them into art-making processes, thus challenging conventional notions of art and blurring the line between so-called “fine” art and craft. Magdalena Abakanowitz’s dimensional wall weavings sought, she said, “the total obliteration of the utilitarian function of tapestry.” In the case of Sheila Hicks, it also raised awareness of the rich fiber traditions from other cultures such as Japan, Mexico, South America and others.

Many women, and some men, then took fiber installation a step further, using it to express political and social ideas or as acts of protest. Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña’s enormous installations focused attention on ecological devastation and cultural homogenization, often incorporating elements of performance. The works of American artist Faith Wilding and French artist Annette Messager were highly feminist in nature, while Xenobia Bailey’s crocheted pieces championed global unity by swirling together Asian and African references, funk culture and mystical Native American and Asian philosophy.

As the fashion and art of the 1970s has come back into vogue, younger artists such as Vanessa Barragão (Portugal) and Alexandra Kehayoglou (Argentina) have taken up the mantle. The emphasis both these women put on the natural world is a synergy they share with Moulton.

“Forest” itself began life in another context. Aside from teaching, doing her own artwork and running Hewnoaks Artist Colony in Lovell in the summer (she is resident manager), Moulton has mined the therapeutic possibilities of her art with schoolchildren and elders. “They don’t make judgments; they just respond,” she has said. “Forest” was a project supported by The Kindling Fund, a grant program administered by the Portland nonprofit Space as part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. It was originally conceived as a multisensory room that would be installed in an elderly living facility. But when COVID-19 hit, the project was shut down. Speedwell eagerly offered a new venue.

Moulton’s project has nothing to do with political or social issues. Nor does it concern itself with consciously using so-called “women’s work” to challenge notions of art and craft. It is, in many ways, closer in intent to the work of Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, whose fiber installations encourage touching, smelling and seeing as ways to experience our bodies and our humanness and, in so doing, share what unites us. Further, Moulton describes “Forest” as being “targeted at joy, at in-the-moment, in-your-face pleasure.”

But “Forest” isn’t just a big “Romper Room” for children of all ages. Its conceptualization and execution belong squarely within the tradition of fiber arts and installation. Moulton’s process is incredibly labor-intensive. Also, “Forest” invites all sorts of metaphorical interpretations. Among them might be the Garden of Eden, the purity of innocence in discovery, the conjuring of intangible states of being such as joy or love.

Part of its transformative power also lies in the implicit commentary it offers on virtual reality, especially in the time of a pandemic. Technology often erases handwork and contact with materials (we can “create” artworks and environments digitally by merely typing on a keyboard). Especially in our current socially distanced, quarantined world, we have been forced to trade human touch and face-to-face interaction for videoconferencing. It’s a measure of interaction, to be sure, but it is by no means complete; we can only see heads and shoulders, and it’s impossible to read body language.

Like Neto, Moulton deploys scent, filling the room with the resiny odor of fir trees. Unlike the Brazilian artist, however, she adds sound (the chirping birds), and her medium is far more versatile than that of Neto, whose environments are usually constructed exclusively from a white stretchy fabric that he fills with different materials to elicit various tactile sensations. Moulton also launches into occasional “surprise performances” in front of various sections of the installation.

Respecting pandemic-era limitations, only five people are allowed into the gallery at any time, and social distancing must be observed. Masks, as well as gloves for those concerned about touching installation elements, are available at the door.

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland. He can be reached at: jorge@jsarango.com 

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