Rag Rugs, Jamming in Singapore & Community

✽ Talk us through the workshop that you hosted yesterday.

Oh, it was very fun. Essentially, a few months ago, my grandmother taught me, my Nana, she taught me rag rug weaving, and a lot of different weaving techniques, traditional weaving techniques. So, these are techniques she used to do as a child in Jamaica in the 40s and 50s, and she does it often. Somtimes I go to visit her, and we do workshops together, and it's really beautiful. We sing and we talk, and through that making process, a lot of conversation comes out that I wouldn't ordinarily get to hear about. Stories from her childhood, stories from when she was growing up, her first loves, or you know, all these really interesting life stories that don't come up when you're just going about your daily life. So I started making rag rugs, and I really enjoyed it.

A lot of my work is about community and involving people in community, and I've done that in Singapore as well. I hosted a workshop, and it was teaching the rag rug techniques using a tool that's called a bodger. The first one I got is an antique tool that my grandmother held on to for a long time, and as I was making, it broke, so I had to replace the spring. I got a lot more, so that I could share this with people, share the history, the story, and the joy of making it. It's very meditative, and what I love about it is how everyone takes the same basic raw materials, which are domestic textiles, discarded clothes, curtains, bed sheets you cut up into little squares, but everyone takes these same things and makes very different stuff with it. It's the same technique, the same materials, and you end up with so many different ways to use it, and I find that really beautiful. So I hosted that workshop.

✽What do you feel like draws you to the medium of textiles in your practice.

I had a tutor recently tell me that the materials in a work make the work, not in a very literal sense, but it's inherent to the work what you use. So rather than purchasing brand new stuff, I like the idea of using things that are already carrying life in them, like curtains. I really like the vision of curtains that have been sitting in someone's home for decades watching so many interactions. Watching the TV with them, overhearing conversations, pushed on, pulled every day, absorbing light, really present in the home. Then making it into fragments and pieces that are put into a new work. Combining multiple curtains and multiple sheets and all these different things makes this really beautiful piece that is a collective history it embodies a lot of personal stories and collective stories of people, you know. What I love is people. So this is a way for me to connect with people and find a way to transmit or put across stories of people.

✽Yeah, you're giving memories, movement again.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and my rugs are traditionally functional. So, when I made it with my Nana, we made one together, a smaller one. About less than a meter all the way around. Traditionally, they're for the front of the house, like a door mat, and it's nice way to zjoos up your house and make it posh. You know this is in Jamaica, a long time ago. Make it really nice and colorful at the front doorstep, and when they get dirty, you take it to the back of the house, and it becomes a back of the house mat. You make a new one, it does this nice rotation that is really functional. One we made together was on the floor. I picked it up, and said, "this is really beautiful", and she said, "oh, you know, it's just a rug." I said, "no, this is art, imagine it here, hanging, so you can really go around it and absorb everything it's carrying in itself.

✽Where would you like to take this? Do you see yourself putting on exhibitions with these pieces?

Definitely exhibitions & shows. I think it's a discussion between functional and visual arts, right? It's a discussion between what is traditionally known as, domestic craft or women's work, which is the thing that only women did. Showing it as not just something to put on the floor to walk over, how can we reframe this?. It's a really beautiful piece of work, and it takes a lot of time and energy and effort, and it's very deliberate. It's very precious. I want to take it all over the world.

✽ It's a powerful statement. Saying we're not here to be walked over anymore. We're gonna put ourselves up to be seen, it's beautiful.

✽ During the workshop, you showed me an old T-shirt you were weaving into. What else do you feel like you could do to clothing with this technique?

There's lots with the work I've made so far. One of the things people say is, "Wow, so textured, it's so colorful, this would be great as a piece of clothing, something to wear". So I've been thinking about ways in which I could explore that through netting, fibers, crochet. So I started with weaving it through a T-shirt that already exists, but there's many, many directions that it can be taken. Yeah, it's play. Exploring the ways that these fabrics and materials can be reused again. It's a practice. "Well, we used what we had" my Nana said. I really like that idea of using things you have to bring new life and to be proud of again. To enjoy it. To celebrate.

✽ What do rivers mean to you?

Rivers mean life. I mean, bodies of water in general. I love the sea. I love the ocean. I love rivers. They mean life. I visited a river in Malaysia with some friends, and it was really beautiful, and it was actually very magical, because I sing as well. I sing and perform, so one of my closest friends, who's also a visual artist, Jade Johnson, we sang together by this river. A bubble of magic came around us. If you've ever experienced this, I know you jam so, this raw energy was around us, it was beautiful. I think the river had a massive part to play with all that energy. For me, rivers mean energy and life and source, and they're beautiful, and they hold so much already. They hold so much memory in themselves already. Being able to tap into that and appreciate that is peaceful. It's also a point of power, being able to be very aware of what's around. The life. There is so much energy there.

✽ I was in Wales a couple weeks ago and randomly discovered this waterfall slash river. I feel like it was drawing me towards it, and it was on Scorpio full moon. The energy you're talking about, with that expansive bubble, like something just popped.

When you describe it, you have to have felt it, right? It's something you really have to have experienced to know that, whoa, this is real, this is very tangible, this feels amazing. When I was singing by that river in Malaysia, we were singing a traditional folk song. As we were singing I felt complete peace, and the most beautiful orange butterfly started fluttering around us. It was incredible. And then as I was singing, it landed right on the end of my fingertip, so I was singing to this butterfly. As the song ended, it fluttered off. Highlight of my life. Honestly.

✽ Do you think there's a word for these moments? Because there definitely isn't one in English that can capture its totality, but I know many other languages would have words for this, because they are special moments,

Really special. Yeah, and perhaps it's something that's beyond words. That's one of those things. When you talk about love, it's really hard to verbalize a true, very real love. It's probably along the same lines, perhaps the same thing in a different form. It's awesome, but not awesome like "that's cool", but awesome, as in inspiring. Majesty.

✽ When did you start performing?

I started performing in 2024. I've always loved to sing, I've always loved to perform, to dance, ever since I was a child. I used to tell this lie to myself that, oh, I'm only good enough for karaoke. Then I went to Singapore, I went there for a year abroad, and it was amazing I made some new friends, creatives, musicians, performers, I remember telling San "I'm only good for karaoke", and he shook his head very, very quietly. "It's crazy what people tell themselves". That struck, it hit me. When things hit me like that, I know it's because they're true. Otherwise, I'd be like whatever, but it was true. In Chinatown Singapore, I went to one of the jams at 'Kult Yard'. The first time I went, I saw that bubble, people making for the joy of making and celebrating. Everyone's playing bongos and the bass and the guitar and the keyboard and singing and vocalizing. I got wrapped up in this energy of creativity. I felt the awe of it. I also felt this pull to the microphone, truly pulling me. But I was frightened.

✽ Yeah your future potential is always right next to the fear. The fear is holding it for you.

I felt it. I really felt it. The first time I said, "okay, fine, cool, not gonna do it". I went back the next week, and I felt it again. I felt that tug towards the microphone. I remember saying to myself in my head, "Okay, Dominique, what is this? Name it. Is this, you don't want to do it. I want to do it. Is it fear? I think it's fear. I'm not gonna allow fear to stop me from doing something I'm called to do. Fear is something that can be overcome, and so I did it. I went up shaking. I remember my toes all the way up to the ends of my hair was shaking at the microphone, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaking. But I did it, and I sang. From then, I spent the next eight months, once a week, multiple times a week, going up and singing at the microphone. I really fell in love with it, and I really enjoyed it. Being a jam, it's different every week, so some weeks were incredible, some weeks are a learning curve. That's the beauty in it. Above it all was this really nice energy of making and sharing and singing for the joy of it, and collaborating. Sing on one microphone, someone singing on the other, you have to find that balance between you. It's really beautiful. Then I did a show, four / five months later. It really picked up once I started. It really, really picked up. So I did a show in Singapore, wrote a song, recorded a song. "This is so cool". Again just for the fun of it. "We're here, you might as well do it, enjoy it, and learn from it". If I'd done it, and said "ah not for me" but I did it, and I loved it.

✽ And the singing started pouring, singa pouring. No matter who I'm talking to at the moment, they seem to be jammers even if they're chance encounters. This magazine's theme has been all about trying to capture that feeling from as many angles as possible. Being in that moment on the stage, where you have to surrender, and the parallel nature that it has with love where you do have to surrender, you have to adapt, you have to be vulnerable. Clearly whatever this energy is is pulling me towards people that at first I don't expect to be jammers, but just shows everyone's got the jammer in their heart.

I think you found your calling, your mission.

✽ Yeah, when you lock into it and you keep going, it picks up, it goes and goes. The dream would be to have a festival that is completely improvised, and have different people that manage different tents. Because all these jams I've been to, the energy is always different depending on the head that it is passing through and the eyes that are directing. Some are dictators and sometimes it actually works because you need people to be like, "Nah, we're not going there, we're taking it here. Then sometimes it kills it. Some are complete chaos and have no control. Something beautiful always comes out 30 minutes deep into it, that you'd never expect. But you have to have enough people that are willing to go through that ride. Then you have some that are quite structured that aren't really jams, but they call them jams, but then they are sort of jams in themselves, they're interesting, but they're more restrictive, there's more of a barrier to entry, but it has its own place.

It's an adventure, and I think it's always worth trying and exploring. Everything I do comes back to people and community, and the celebration of that. Involving people. Making them feel seen & heard, to have a space to create and enjoy magic.

✽ If you could open your own third space, where would it be? What would it be called? Who would it be for? Paint the picture. What does it look like?

I'd want it to be somewhere in Southeast Asia. Not found my spot yet. I love Singapore. I think there's a space somewhere waiting for me. I'd want it to be a bar with reasonably priced drinks, reasonable! I'd want it to be a space where people can sit and chat and get to know each other, and also enjoy vibes and music. I want to be a safe space for people to be open. The biggest thing for me is openness, open for different backgrounds, different race, different genders, different identity. It's a space for creativity. I think culture is the most important thing in a jam in a space. It's about the culture, it's about the mood and the tone that you set for it. My favourite part of the jams I've taken part in is when everyone's on that same plane, and the mood's just right. People are dancing however they want to dance and singing however they want to sing, and there's no judgment. It's precious. I'd want to cultivate a space like that, where people would know they can come, and they would always be welcomed, no matter what happened in the day. No matter what, they can come and enjoy the vibes. Enjoy the space, sit in it, make connections and friends. Allow joy to go through them. Yeah, and the name...something to do with magic.

✽ Something To Do With Magic,

Maybe that... something to do with magic, or Something about magic, or

✽ Something To Do With Magic. I can see that on a long wooden sign.

✽ What are you afraid of, that's coming next, that you feel like you have to step into?

Being seen as my biggest, brightest self. It's easier for me to do it in person, you can connect with someone, listen, be heard and share. Through online platforms its different, a lot of different things shift. It's important nonetheless in this time, and important, because I think it serves as a medium for greater connections and more connections, genuine ones. I think with my practice being so community based, it serves as a medium to welcome more community, so more people can know that they can get involved and they can be safe. The next steps, and I've been slowly edging my toes into the water, is doing that big and brightly and not censoring myself online. I made some things I put online, and I showed my friend, and she said, "But that's not the Dom I know". So I made another one where it was more me and that seemed to connect with people. Everyone throws around the word authenticity these days, but I think at the root of it, it's really important to be seen as yourself and allow that to also shift with time. That's the next thing.

✽ Bada bing, bada boom, bang bang.

Love is the jam,

✽ Love is the jam.