The book “Lublin Perebory: Past and Present”
“Lublin Perebory: Past and Present” is an original research study by Monika Trypuz, born from in-depth field research on the phenomenon of perebory. The author analyzes not only the weaving technique itself but also the origins of this ornament, its regional variations, and areas of occurrence. The work includes valuable transcriptions of interviews with master weavers, an ethnologist, and a representative of the fashion industry, tracing the path of perebory—from folk tradition and popularization to contemporary commercial and artistic applications. This comprehensive approach became the foundation of the Atencja project, in which the author confronts ancient weaving knowledge with modern digital techniques. The publication was recognized in the “Polska wieś – Dziedzictwo i Przyszłość” (2020) and “Korzenie i skrzydła” (2023) competitions.
Click to download the digital version of the book (Polish version)
Pattern book
The starting point for the “Atencja” project is an original pattern book comprising twelve unique perebors inspired by the mourning perebor from Włodawa. This set focuses on an exceptionally meticulous weaving technique, in which each line of the pattern is created thanks to the creator’s precision and mindfulness.
According to the definition by ethnographer Teresa Karwicka, a perebor is a woven ornament created using a pick-up technique, in which patterned sections are woven simultaneously with the plain cloth. The pattern’s weft thread runs irregularly among the warp threads, forming a characteristic design on only a fragment of the fabric while the rest remains smooth. For Monika Trypuz, the process of learning and weaving perebors has become a symbol of returning to native roots, as well as a record of memory and a search for this unique ornamentation once so characteristic of eastern Poland.
Light boxes
The “Atencja” project is an attempt to visualize the evolution of technology. The loom, which served as the inspiration for Joseph Jacquard to construct the Jacquard machine, became a starting point for the history of computing due to its binary method of recording. It can therefore be concluded that the traditional loom was one of the beginnings of the digital era.
The light boxes, as the next stage of the project, refer to the digital storage of memory. The matrices here are duplicated pattern modules that relate directly to designs on grids—the foundation for weaving perebors—as well as to punched cards, which serve as the prototype for memory controlling the Jacquard machine.
Mapping
Mapping showing the pattern-creation process line by line, projected onto a 3D object imitating fabric, is another element of the “Atencja” project that confronts traditional handicraft techniques with modern digital technologies. The pattern modules saved in code, rendered row by row, refer to the operation of the automated Jacquard loom—the precursor to the computer. Each row is created using white and black pixels interweaving like the threads of a white warp and a black weft. The viewer is drawn into a meditative state and the laborious process of creation by the rhythmic, repetitive sound of the individual stages of weaving: before the start of each line, one hears the sound of stepping on a treadle; during the creation of the pattern line, the sound of throwing the shuttle with the weft; and after the completed line, the strike of the batten.
Pereborial network
The “Atencja” project combines art with artificial intelligence through the creation of a special LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) recurrent neural network called the pereborial network, developed by Monika and Robert Trypuz. The presented graphics are the result of this network’s operation, whose creative process was based on two stages: first, the network learned the structure of perebors—treated as sequences of stripes—so that it could predict their development; then, thanks to stochastic sampling, it gained “creative freedom,” allowing it to generate completely new, unique patterns of a given length.