kadipuu

Knight's Tour

Exhibition Knight's Tour at HOP gallery, March 2020. 

Marilyn making textiles for her installation Counted. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9qX8vFp1f8/

About the idea for the exhibition.

The checked wooden box was placed on the top of the bookshelf. The chess pieces were not allowed to be taken to the play corner even if the four knights seemed to scream and to neigh in order to be part of the games not restricted by the quandrangular black-and-white square. When the box was taken down, the sound of the chess pieces thudding could be heard. The black and white armies were lined up to their starting positions. The pieces made soft noise, their bottoms had dark-red felt circles glued underneath. Openings, maneuvres, sacrifices, checks were taken place. When the rules were clear, we learned that the knight could jump over the other pieces and while always being on a square of an opposite colour after the jump. The black square is followed by the white one and the other way round. It was sad to sacrifice the knight since it had a face and had witty moves: two moves to one direction, and then one to aside. It was much easier to give up the bishop.

The knight is related to several interesting mathematical problems: what is the trajectory of the knight in order to cover the whole chess board while touching every square only once. The title of our exhibition - Knight's Tour - was namely inspired by this comprehensive logic of this journey so similar to construction of textile structures: to be in every moment (looping-knotting-crossing) only once, to be present. The created artwork relates to the sediments of similar journeys layer by layer, line by line, resulting in stalactites, spatial white wholes providing reconciliation for the absence of winter.