Morus
Morus is a collaborative project between the artists Hanna Norrna (SE), Irini Gonou (GR) and Kleopatra Tsali (GR) founded in 2022.
Athens University of Agriculture, April 2024
Morus trees, Fårö 2023
Fårö, July 2023
The project explores artistic, social, historical and ecological dimensions of silk. It begins with domestic sericulture - as the artists breed silkworms on a small scale, in their homes in Gotland, in Naxos and in Athens. In parallel to sericulture, the artists investigate local silk productions in the past and in the present.
On Gotland, plantations of tens of thousands of mulberry trees were established between 1830-1850, on initiative of the Society of Domestic Sericulture. Women of the aristocracy produced silk on their own farms, and a group of women on the edges of society were trained by Elisabeth (Blessell) Kahl, to work within the silkworm-breeding at an institution called Arbetshuset in Visby. The origin of the Gotlandic silk productions leads to the Middle Ages, when the first mulberry trees were brought to the island with monks from southern Europe.
Plantations of mulberry trees from 1840, Slottsbetningen, Visby 2023
Second generation, Fårö July 2023
Weaving in silk from our own productions, stones from my great grandmother’s collection
