Somehow a Stranger
Final installation of my MFA thesis project at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s galleries.
2022
I have spent the past year sorting through public records, cherished correspondence, personal photographs, and oral history to get to know my grandmother even as her Alzheimer’s progresses. As performed historian and anthropologist, I document our family’s history and confront the disease’s overwhelming genetic power in our family tree, and the likely possibility that it lies dormant in my father and in myself. Through extensive, ongoing research, I create our family’s first archive and a record of my grandmother’s life.
I weave these pieces as an act of generational care; as a physical, time-based documentation of a growing connection with my grandmother; as a grieving for a relationship that will never feel complete; as a mourning for memory.
I weave these pieces as an act of generational care; as a physical, time-based documentation of a growing connection with my grandmother; as a grieving for a relationship that will never feel complete; as a mourning for memory.
Proof, Soft (Catalog 1), 2022, Latex print on organza, grommets, metal rods and PLA, 56x36x4in.
Glimpses, Faint Traces, 2022, Handwoven cotton and wool, 61x40in.
Watching Her, Look for Her, 2022, Handwoven cotton, 72x39in.
