01 A Lout, a Boor, A Churl (part of Oral Method)

(Close)

Offering of Vegetarian Rosette, 2026, jacquard woven cloth (wool, linen, nylon), back scratcher

Burl, 2026, cashmere, dye, hole in the floor, photo by Roman Sheppard Dawson

Patch, 2026, cashmere, dye, cardboard, pins, photo by Roman Sheppard Dawson

Miss Ma’am, 2026, cashmere, dye, pin, gap in the wall

Loom Weight March, 2026, crayon, tape, watercolour

Pulley Harvest, 2026, crayon, tape, watercolour

Burl, 2026, cashmere, dye, hole in the floor,
Patch, 2026, cashmere, dye, cardboard, pins

Loom Pulley, 2026, high vis nylon, cashmere ribbon, dye, broom handle

A Lout, A Boor, A Churl

part of Oral Method
at
The Writers Room, London

July 2026

For a Lout, a Boor, a Churl, I wanted to approach the themes at hand – ‘social architecture within language’ - ‘the romanticization of peasant life’ and ‘collective living’ by adapting my personal archive of Doukhobor folk textile traditions to match the sense of playful inquiry of Esme’s prompts. Doukhobors emerged in 18th-century Russia as a radical pacifist Christian community whose beliefs often put them at odds with the Russian Orthodox Church. Their name translates to ‘spirit wrestlers’- originally intended as an insult, they then reclaimed it as a succinct description of their way of life - to wrestle together alongside the Spirit in the search for truth.

Moving from a settler colony to the UK, and seeing this current folk-craft revival in culture and the ways it is embraced and weaponized in equal measure, I am moved to think about who gets to dabble in the aesthetics of hard work and yearn for simplicity - (as if any folk culture is simple!). How connections to folk, to land itself is used as a way to legitimize class strata, as if you can be uplifted through austerity by blood, pushing others down and away as suits far right agendas.

I am thinking about Marie Antoinette’s faux peasant farm she had built, La Humeau de la Reine, and the faux tools she would use, facsimiles of rakes, trawls, coated in silk ribbon and tassels. A kind of pastoral class play not unfamiliar now, the proliferation of the chore coat and blue collar symbols not uncommon locally.

This is not what this installation is meant to be, more that I was trained as a weaver, and by the Doukhobor metric, still fairly useless. I don’t know how to split flax, I didn’t learn to weave by necessity but by choice. All the same. All I can offer is homage, but I do think that is in the spirit of the culture, anyways. Tucked into the floorboards and walls of the Writers room, ikat weaving rest for you to find, embedded in the space.

Reference Materials x

(Return to Projects)

Hannah Zbitnew