Small material. An entire history.
Lace is more than ornament here. Homer’s research asks what handmade objects can tell us about the people who made them—and what disappears when their stories stop being passed on.
05/10
Artist Film
The Interview
Director of Photography / BERK ÖZCAN
An artist portrait of Lily Homer and her research into Spanier Arbeit: a rare Ashkenazi Jewish bobbin-lace tradition. A conversation about material, memory, and the knowledge carried from one generation to another.
- CLIENT / ARTIST
- Lily Homer
- CONTRIBUTION
- Director of Photography
- DISCIPLINE
- Cinematography
Inside the work.
A living thread, not a vanished art.
The tradition has surviving practitioners. Rather than describing it as completely forgotten, this portrait sits alongside Homer’s investigation into a rare, guarded craft and the relationships that sustain it.
The person and the material.
The film’s visual language moves between portraiture, tactile detail, and the artist’s surroundings. The shift in scale lets a face and a small material form carry equal visual weight: a conversation with a person, not simply a catalogue of objects.
MORE INFORMATIONLily Homer on Spanier Arbeit — artist interview ↗
06 FRAMES
SELECT A FRAME / OPEN THE SEQUENCE
PERSON. Material. Memory.
Spanier Arbeit, also written Shpanyer Arbet, is a metal bobbin-lace tradition associated with Ashkenazi Jewish ceremonial dress. Homer encountered it in Ita Aber’s The Art of Judaic Needlework in 2017 and began researching its techniques and history. Her published account connects the craft to family inheritance, migration, and the difficulty of preserving knowledge passed between makers.
Held in the making.
Portraiture and tactile forms bring the artist and her material into the same visual conversation.
