Lydia May Hann is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Whitby, North Yorkshire, working with wool, textile industry waste and assorted natural materials to create expressive costumes and sculptures exploring folklore and lost identity. Hann brings together her upbringing in northern Norway and her Shetland ancestry to create pieces that speak about craft, nature, heritage and home. The Selkies combine Nordic and Scottish mythologies rooted in environmentalism and life at the edge of things. In this work, Lydia contemplates the body as a textile and the labour of shaping one’s own image from scraps of history, environment and experience.
The Selkies are a collection of material-led costumes inspired by Shetland stories of the seal-folk who protect the North Sea. Selkies are creatures that transform from seal to human by removing their skin. The skin is an extension of the body that can be shared or stolen, a sacred cloth that grants the wearer access to the sea. In this work, Hann contemplates the body as a textile and the labour of shaping one’s own image from scraps of history, environment and experience.
Each selkie skin is crafted from second hand materials including carded wool donated by Oslo Mikrospinneri and whole sheep fleeces destined for composting. The yarns were sourced from charity shops, the back of cupboards and factory outlets, knit into designs that lean into the variety and fragility for which they were previously overlooked.
The short process film Baptism of the Grey Selkie documents the meeting of wool and water where seawater is used in the final fulling stage of the felting process, the cold water and wave motion tightening the fabric.
