Emergency Tapestries

2014 - 2019

The handwoven Emergency Tapestry series portray instructions on how to save each other’s lives, how to act rationally in the face of our mortality, and how to behave with our bodies.

Through the slow act of handweaving with alpaca yarn, I decelerate, soften, and enlarge these choreographed moments to question perceptions about physical interaction, otherness, and danger.  While tapestries have historically displayed the narrative of a religious, mythological, or heroic event, these safety instructions depict everyday people disregarding their physical boundaries to keep each other alive.

The Caution: HB2 Series (2016 - 2019) specifically responds to the House Bill 2 legislation (“Bathroom Bill”), passed in 2016 in North Carolina, that nullified existing anti-discrimination ordinances in the state. It targeted the LGBTQ community and transgender people in particular. The male/female bathroom sign inspired this series of hand woven tapestries illustrating a continuum of gender/sexual identity icons. This work aims to depict the spectrum of our American identities and the need for a visual language that supports it.