Art Form(s)
Connect
Minneapolis
Artist Statement
I am interested in the creative possibilities of the sewing machine, which I use to draw, create installations, and initiate socially engaged public projects. I am a maker, yet much of my work involves the opposite: I “unmake” things and “dismantle” ways of seeing and believing. I am interested in the sewing machine as a deeply symbolic and also (im)practical object. I use the revolving needle of my sewing machine to both draw and reimagine connections between people. I often use the sewing machine without thread and instead use the needle’s punctures to create stencils and works on paper. I shake or “pounce” charcoal and soft pastel through the resulting stencils and onto walls, creating large-scale, site-specific drawings. I also create installations with disassembled garments, reassembling various “parts” to make the labor in these clothes visible and tangible. Through the act of undoing seams and re-making connections through sewing, I divert sewing's original purpose of creating and mending toward social critique. I call attention to the stitch as a symbol of interdependence, using it to express belief in the possibility of social change and repair. For the last eight years my work has examined the labor rights of garment workers, as a catalyst for social change. While rooted in research about the garment industry, my work also refers to the scale of many crisis caused by capitalism—climate change, racism, and labor abuse. It makes visible numbers and systems that are hard to comprehend, in an effort to remind us of the human labor present in the clothes we wear and our relationship to these workers. My interest in labor rights stems from histories of Jewish activism in the garment industry and also my own family history as immigrants and activists.