ICP-Bard MFA Studios
24-20 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101
February 8–10, 2019
Solo Show
Comprised of fabric wall hangings, silver gelatin prints, assemblage and cotton rag prints, this work pulls from my family archive and recent images to create a moving tribute to grief, loss and mourning, woven around family, history, displacement and memory.
Born and raised in South Africa between rural spaces and the city of Johannesburg, I am greatly influenced by my childhood and my extensive work with rural communities in Southern Africa, where the mortality rate is very high due to the AIDS pandemic.
I work with thread and fabric to connect myself materially to those I’ve lost, bonding me to past and present. The art of needlework can also seem violent. The needle’s sharpness reminds me of the pain that accompanies loss. At the same time, stitching mends. Through this process I long to put to rest, and at the same time keep alive, what I have lost.
Examining heritage, history, kin and remembrance, this body of work attests to the impossibility of disengaging and disentangling our personal stories from history as I have been criss-crossing between the US and South Africa. These pieces reflect on the difficulty of extricating myself from a primal attachment to the land in which I was born, and to the significance of remembrance.
