Jacqueline Nicholls
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Red Thread Drawings

Picture
This is a series of embroideries that trace the movements and individuality of performers, using red thread as a symbolic replacement for blood. It takes the spontaneous drawings sketched during performance and retraces and makes deliberate each line.

In the mishna in Sanhedrin 4:2, which discusses the unique value of individual human lives, it quotes the story of Cain killing Abel, describing Abel's bloods as screaming from the ground. The blood takes the place of the individual and demands justice. The blood being plural is interpreted that Cain also killed all of Abel's potential - not just one life. Elsewhere in the Torah, when it is obligating us to take care and protect life, it uses the word 'blood' to represent the potential victim (eg - don't stand idly by the blood of your neighbour). 

My grandmother always insisted that we had some red ribbon or thread attached to our clothes, as an amulet against the evil eye. By wearing the amulet of the red thread we are sending out a message that blood flows in this body, and this life should be protected.

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