Harriet Riddell is an artist who creates fabric works made with a sewing machine powered by pedalling a bicycle. When art is sustainable.
English artist Harriet Riddell has turned her passion for fabrics and sewing into a vocation. She now spreads her vision of sustainable art by travelling the world with her sewing machine powered by the kinetic energy produced by a bicycle.
Capturing landscapes and the essence of people using a sewing machine powered by solar panels or a bicycle connected to a generator. That is what Riddell does — a young performer originally from Oxfordshire with a Master's in contemporary applied arts from the University of Hertfordshire. InStitchYou ("to stitch" means cucire in Italian) is the project conceived by Riddell that has taken her around the world — even though the artist is currently based in London, where she exhibits her work at the Gx gallery.
It is a passion that was born when she was a child, thanks to her grandmother's sewing machine, and that later became a profession. Her machine, however, is no ordinary sewing machine, because it consumes no electrical energy but instead produces it sustainably. Initially Riddell had equipped herself with solar panels to power her device, but she has since begun using kinetic energy. Whoever wishes to be portrayed pedals for around 25–30 minutes — the time needed to complete the portrait — on a stationary bicycle connected to a generator that powers the machine directly.
"For those used to cycling it isn't tiring, but it's still a good workout," explains Riddell. "If people don't pedal hard enough the machine switches off, so I have to encourage them to put in a bit more effort." Between one pedal stroke and the next, Riddell chats with the person in front of her, adding small details linked to the personality of the "accidental cyclist".
The generator connected to the bicycle was supplied to her by Electric Pedals, based in Peckham, a neighbourhood in south-east London, where solutions are developed to power cinemas, concerts, theatrical installations and workshops using only stationary bicycles. Thus the sewing machine and the bicycle have become two defining features of Riddell, who this summer has been travelling around the United Kingdom taking part in various festivals, including the Fringe in Edinburgh — now in its 70th edition — and the Wilderness festival in Oxfordshire.
Riddell thus offers her own interpretation of the world on a piece of cloth. Using thread, patches and fabric scraps kept in a heavy suitcase, the artist relies on her sewing skills to create art and interpret the reality around her. This has been a way of getting to know local communities during her travels in India and Kenya and of fixing the hic et nunc — that is, whatever was in front of her at that moment — onto fabric.
Transporting a sewing machine, a small table, a chair, a generator and fabrics to the peaks of the Himalayas or into the slums of Nairobi has not been easy, but the effort has brought its reward. In an open space in direct contact with people, Riddell says she feels open to the world and to those around her, and the obstacles she encounters are simply part of the narrative present in every one of her works.