Reasons to be Sheepful: from wedding shawls to burial shrouds with Yuli Somme of Bellacouche

Our crisis, our challenge, our opportunity is complex. More than ever, it matters now that we not get caught in separate silos where we focus just on atmospheric carbon, or just on plastic pollution, or just on our cultural addiction to fossil fuels. We need responses that cover all of these fields, new stories that let us move into a future we can barely imagine. 

So, that's what this podcast is for: to give a platform to people whose perspectives are new or different or challenging or inspiring in ways that will help us all to weave new stories of how we could do things differently -  and this week, we're talking to Yuli Summe of Bellacouche, whose work has taken her from weaving to felt making to the creation of burial shrouds. Yuli is a maker, someone deeply grounded in our connection to the ancestry of the land and the ways we have sustained ourselves from it. She's been working with wool since childhood and is embedded in the rich lore of shepherd, farm and land, of the fullers and spinners and weavers that were so much a core of our history - and will be again as we move to a more localised, simpler economy and way of living. This conversation moved from the courage of one man in the second world war, to the courage of his daughter in laying to rest her fear of death, through fields and high tors and the rhythms of feltmaking. It felt to me like a song to our future and I hope it leads you forward in the same way. 

Bio
Yuli was born in Norway and although she has lived most of her life in Devon, the traditional weaving and knitting heritage of Norway has deeply influenced her since she was old enough to hold needles to knit with.  She is a member of Make SouthWest and through this organisation, has been an active teacher of felt making and textile understanding in schools, and is part of the Green Maker Initiative.

At the turn of the millennium, an Arts Council grant allowed Yuli to travel to Turkey to work with traditional master feltmakers, and it was there that she started thinking about a “lifetime” garment made of felt, inspired by witnessing the making of a ‘kepenek’, a felt cloak traditional to Kurdish shepherds.  

Yuli is a member of the South West FibreShed – a growing community of fibre and dye growers, processors, makers and manufacturers across the South West whose aim is to produce home-grown textiles and garments in a more healthy, resilient and regenerative textile ecosystem. This group is affiliated to the international FibreShed group.

Another Man's Shoes https://www.waterstones.com/book/another-mans-shoes/sven-somme/9780954913731
Yuli Somme Bellacouche https://www.bellacouche.com/yuli-somme/
Human Composting  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LJSEZ_pl3Y
Good Funeral Guide https://goodfuneralguild.co.uk/
Natural Death Centre http://naturaldeath.org.uk/