Cable Street has no cables. Twine Court has no twine. Walk through Shadwell today and the names above the doors still whisper what stood here for two centuries: a rope-making industry that ran through east London's docklands until the mid-1900s, then vanished, leaving only its street signs behind.
Curator Kirsty Lowry knotting rope in The Ropery, Whitechapel Gallery. Photo by Rocio Chacon.
The Ropery, a participatory exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, sets out to unravel that history. Opened in July as part of Backyard Biennial: East and curated by Kirsty Lowry and Helen Davison with designer and researcher Sanne Visser, the free show has drawn thousands of visitors into a single installation that has grown across the run, as people arrive to make rope and tie knots by hand.
Installation view, The Ropery. Photo by Rocio Chacon.
Rope making was a craft of patience. Hemp was left to 'ret' in water until only tough cellulose stalks remained, then dragged through a heckle board studded with steel pins, by women who were among the trade's earliest organised workers in a largely women-led industry. Spinners walked backwards from a rotating hook, judging thickness by instinct, and three strands twisted in opposite directions were laid together into rope. The finest were kept for a ship's rigging, then demoted down the chain of use until, worn through, packed as oakum to seal a hull. Little was ever wasted...
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Image Credits:
Lead: Installation view, The Ropery. Photo by Rocio Chacon.
All further images as credited in captions.