Robe noire du Chaman Zita-Niya

Knotted, plaited and woven plastic
250 x 30 cm

The creations of the plastic artist Stéphanie-Maï Hanuš reflect her numerous trips through Asia where she discovered other ways of viewing the world (shamanism, superstitions, etc.). After finishing her studies in applied arts in Paris, she went to Indonesia to attend a school of traditional art and then she went to Japan where she studied the art of knot-tying with local artisans. The use of soft, flexible materials allows her to work in close contact with the material where a limited amount of tools are needed to braid, weave, and knot, and simple movements create connections and reinforce the solidity of fragile « low quality » materials. Thin and easily broken, they can also become robust, knotting and unknotting, at once confining and then liberating… Creating links, freeing up old knots, undoing them just to retie them… Is that not simply a metaphor for a vision of life?