Since I last posted it has been my turn to go a-travelling. I’ve been a member of ETN (European Textile Network) for a few years now, but had never managed to attend the biennial conference. This year I finally decided it was time to do it – after all, who knows how easy it will or won’t be to travel to the next one – and as the plans took shape, they also got increasingly elaborate. S & I ended up making a one-thousand-mile road trip from Dundee to Borås (with the assistance of the Newcastle-Amsterdam ferry over the parts where there are no roads).
The outward journey was lengthened due to bad weather – in fact, from the lack of progress across the sea, I would have sworn we were going backwards – but these ferries are so large and stable that we hardly noticed the high winds. We *did* notice that we had to drive through the night to make up for lost time, but by day two we had caught up with ourselves and managed to cross the Øresund Bridge in appropriately Scandi-noir rain. Thereafter, alas, the sun shone on us for a week. We just had to grin and bear it.
I’ll need to organise my thoughts about the Crossover conference. There were two days of talks, giving me much to ponder on, and in addition I reckon I saw thirteen exhibitions across seven museums and galleries (not to mention two, or was it three, pop-up exhibits), visited three factories, two art schools and a complex of artists’ studios. So while I mentally process that little lot, you’ll have to make do with (mainly) photos of the sea.
When we planned our itinerary, I was a wee bit disappointed that I wouldn’t also be able to visit Väv in Växjö, which started last Thursday just as we were getting back on the ferry. As it turned out, Crossover was plenty for me, and by the time we were done I really, really didn’t want any more input!
“ETN: Crossover Borås – there and back again” was posted by Cally on 23 Sept 2017 at https://callybooker.co.uk
