Interviews
Threads: Textiles and Fiber in the Works of African American Artists
09 Sep '10
5 min read
Her work involves issues of time and personal change and the ephemeral nature of her work is a metaphor for the impermanence of life. Warp Trance, Senga's first video work also uses discarded material: the Jacquard punch cards on which the video installation is projected, were collected from several industrial weaving mills the artist visited. The cards used to control a sequence of operations allude to revolutions in both the textile industry and computer technology. The association of rhythmic sounds and images recorded in the mills and recomposed by the artists and Butch Morris, translate the repetitive motion of the mills to evoke ritual and trance. The spectator is invited to interact with the piece, to move and dance within it to remove oneself from one's own reality.
Shinique Smith's work explores the desires of humans to accumulate goods by designing bundles of previously worn, created or bought material. The artist has commented that "My work implies multiple reads and is informed by an enduring interest in how the vast expanse of 'things' come to shape our experiences. Consistently questioning the reason for 'things,' I reinterpret the connections we build our personal myths on through the objects that we hold on to and discard to expose how excess and waste are intimately related to personal meaning and market value, which resonate on a social, and spiritual scale." Consequently, each piece is infused with the story of the individual who possessed the material. Her bale sculpture resembles a nest, a concentrated version of a home, reflecting how busy the owner is building identity through accumulation, overuse and disposal.
Through sculpture, drawings and video, Saya Woolfalk creates a fictional world which has been totally re-imagined by the artist to immerse the spectator in another place. The characters inhabiting this world are half-human and half-plant, wearing plush multi-colored costumes in a candy-colored and fruit-abundant landscape. Inspired by the tradition of the fable or folk story, she creates narratives through mapping the desires and ideas of herself and her friends and colleagues. Inspired by the concept of Utopia originated by famous humanist Thomas More, this body of work is titled No Place.
Her inspiration draws on Japanese anime (she was born in Japan to a Japanese mother) and traditional African garments (her father is African-American). Through this blending of cultures, her work is imbued with the same complexities she feels about her own identity, creating both the foreign and familiar. According to Saya, "[the] work considers the idea that symbolic and ideological systems can be activated and re-imagined through collaboration, imaginative play and masquerade. …From 2006-2008, I worked with anthropologist and filmmaker Rachel Lears to develop an Ethnography of No Place, a 30 minute video about fictional No Place, a future constructed for the investigation of human possibilities and impossibilities: configurations of biology, sociality, race, class, sexuality, and the environment designed as reflections on human life and its future."
Threads: Textiles and Fiber in the Works of African American Artists, on view from September 18th to December 18th, 2010 at Eli Klein Fine Art's Beijing gallery, EK Projects, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Lowery Stokes Sims.
Shinique Smith's work explores the desires of humans to accumulate goods by designing bundles of previously worn, created or bought material. The artist has commented that "My work implies multiple reads and is informed by an enduring interest in how the vast expanse of 'things' come to shape our experiences. Consistently questioning the reason for 'things,' I reinterpret the connections we build our personal myths on through the objects that we hold on to and discard to expose how excess and waste are intimately related to personal meaning and market value, which resonate on a social, and spiritual scale." Consequently, each piece is infused with the story of the individual who possessed the material. Her bale sculpture resembles a nest, a concentrated version of a home, reflecting how busy the owner is building identity through accumulation, overuse and disposal.
Through sculpture, drawings and video, Saya Woolfalk creates a fictional world which has been totally re-imagined by the artist to immerse the spectator in another place. The characters inhabiting this world are half-human and half-plant, wearing plush multi-colored costumes in a candy-colored and fruit-abundant landscape. Inspired by the tradition of the fable or folk story, she creates narratives through mapping the desires and ideas of herself and her friends and colleagues. Inspired by the concept of Utopia originated by famous humanist Thomas More, this body of work is titled No Place.
Her inspiration draws on Japanese anime (she was born in Japan to a Japanese mother) and traditional African garments (her father is African-American). Through this blending of cultures, her work is imbued with the same complexities she feels about her own identity, creating both the foreign and familiar. According to Saya, "[the] work considers the idea that symbolic and ideological systems can be activated and re-imagined through collaboration, imaginative play and masquerade. …From 2006-2008, I worked with anthropologist and filmmaker Rachel Lears to develop an Ethnography of No Place, a 30 minute video about fictional No Place, a future constructed for the investigation of human possibilities and impossibilities: configurations of biology, sociality, race, class, sexuality, and the environment designed as reflections on human life and its future."
Threads: Textiles and Fiber in the Works of African American Artists, on view from September 18th to December 18th, 2010 at Eli Klein Fine Art's Beijing gallery, EK Projects, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Lowery Stokes Sims.
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