TEXTILE CO-OP
Project created with partner Samarth Vachhrajani
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Textiles are objects which carry stories and memories in them. They signify the conditions that once existed. Even in times such as now, where we find ourselves trapped in our houses, textiles are meant to ground oneself to remember the stories attached on the fabric with each stitch and stain.
The building is located in Beacon, NY, a place where multiple hat factories existed. The city was once known as the “hat factory making the capital of New York State.” This work seeks to recognize this past of Beacon through art residency within Dia:Beacon.
The proposed residency located to the west of the museum is where artists who work with textiles have the opportunity to participate in discussions of oral histories as a speculative form of generating new and just forms of textile labor production. The drawings within this project are textile objects. The fabric tapestry is a container of our thoughts, concept, and spatial strategy. Explorations with thread, sewing machines, acetone transfer and paper were encouraged. Inherited fabrics, clothes, and pattern pieces are held dear to our hearts due to the visual documentation of labor and physical work that go into sewing and textile creations.