Ornament & Crime 
Tapestry, 146 x 350 cm
woven Jacquard fabric
2023

Produced in collaboration with textile designer Katharina Jebsen (DE).

Thinking through the pattern of the grid, Ornament & Crime addresses the complex linkages between abstraction and extraction, between automation and labour. Specifically, the installation considers the essential operations of the grid in both textile and spatial production, and describes it as a coding system that generates certain forms of knowledge and perception as well as (in)visibility. The work traces several paths from the 18th century tabular systems, which occurred in French textile manufacturing and created an absolutist gaze "from above", to the grid of globalised mass production as seen from the perspective of the satellite. Referring to the ornamental representations of nature in 18th century jacquard textiles which embellished interior spaces, the woven tapestry shows a satellite image of the world's largest cotton belt, where in 2020 a discussion about labour exploitation and automation has unfolded.

Ornament & Crime consists of a tapestry woven with a jacquard loom and a photographic series. The work was developed in close connection to the film essay Patterns Against Workers (2022, 34 min.).