A Worldwide Web of Somewheres

Intricate Polynesian fishing nets, whose lines and knots were also woven maps of wind and sea currents, are an inspiration for this handwoven textile.

Alluding to the City of London’s maritime associations, Lwin’s handwoven net charts subterranean infrastructure in the City. The work’s title is drawn from Maya Jasanoff’s recent biography of novelist-sailor Joseph Conrad.

’A Worldwide Web of Somewheres’ belongs to the artist’s ‘Capricious Cartography’ series: mapmaking that is more equivocal, mutable and unstable than traditional cartography. Suspended above our heads, it recalls both an acrobat’s safety net, or a hunter’s trap; equally robust and fragile. The artwork, produced specifically for this site, affirms our continued dependence on physical connections to people, places and ideas beyond our immediate understanding.

Image: Amanda Lwin, The Cartographer Tries to Map her Way to Deptford (from the Capricious Cartography series), 2017. Copyright the artist.