Juliacks

Utopian Mysteries of Justice

Artist Juliacks ​​developed a series of seven woven tapestries with product developer Lotte van Dijk to illustrate her novel Transversal scepters. In the story, a B-list actor from 2020 travels back in time to 17th-century North Holland. There, he assumes the guise of Jan Gillissen, a visionary weaver and dissident fighting for a just future. The seven tapestries depict his experiences in the style of illustrations from medieval manuscripts. They combine Gillissen’s visions of the future with borrowed scenes from 17th-century tapestries as well as prints from Haarlem and Amsterdam that are now in the Rijksmuseum collection.

Particularly notable is the fact that different images are woven on the front and back of the fabrics. The front shows a vibrant scene comprising approximately 50 different colours. The back shows a much simpler image made up of four colours. This presented a technical challenge for the product developer, because only one image can be entered into the programme that controls the machine. The fabrics comprise a mix of matte and shiny yarns: linen, recycled polyester, veluto, merino wool, mohair, lurex and viscose.

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Photos by Anne Beentjes and Lars Berg