Runs from 6/6 - 6/29

Opening Reception Saturday 6/7 from 4-6pm

Closing Reception

Artist Statement:

Sewn Silences is an exhibition of textiles that explores the relationship between text and textile. I am interested in historical uses of textiles as markers of identity, systems of communication, coded objects and storytelling devices, such as the role of quilts as maps along the Underground Railroad and the symbolism found in traditional West African textiles. In these histories, textiles perform as griots, archives, and guides with their own unique language of silence. They communicate vital information about safety, futurity, community, and identity. In this body of work, I play with a devised coded language of symbols, shapes, and colors that I use to stitch messages into naturally dyed cloth. The dyes—extracted from indigo, logwood, madder root, marigold, and turmeric—draw from indigenous technologies and wisdom across the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean, West Africa, and India, while also carrying the legacy of colonial violence against both people and land. The encoded messages are sometimes warning, sometimes affirmation, sometimes observation along a mythical route to freedom. As wearables and fashion statements, the works in the exhibition are objects of protection, identification, and/or disguise.