Queer Threads: Fresh Voices

Transformer

Meet the artists from the multi-site exhibition series Queer Threads: Curious Spaces as they discuss their thread-based studio practices.

A conversation with curator John Chaich and artists André Terrel Jackson and Zoe Schlacter exploring how queerness informs their thread-based fiber practices and works on view at The Corner at Whitman-Walker and Transformer. Moderated by Caroline Kipp, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Textile Museum, and Victoria Reis, Executive &amp; Artist Director of Transformer. Hosted by The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum in collaboration with Transformer.

John Chaich is an independent curator and designer interested in otherness, materiality, and communication. He has curated a range of group and solo exhibitions including Queer Threads: Crafting Identity &amp; Community at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York, the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, and the Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts; Mixed Messages: A(I)DS, Art, and Words, produced for Visual AIDS at La MaMa Galleria, New York, and Transformer Gallery, Washington, DC; Catalina Schliebener: Growing Sideways at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division in NYC and Hache Galleria in Buenos Aires; Vivek Shraya: Trisha at the Ace Hotel New York; and Queering the BiblioObject at the Center for Book Arts. With Todd Oldham, he edited the coffee table book Queer Threads, which received the American Library Association’s 2018 Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award. Chaich received his MFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute, where he is a visiting instructor. Chaichcreative.com

André Terrel Jackson is interested in the individual experiences that add up to create social, political and cultural groups. Mining personal history, the artist is able to use poetry, weaving, sculpture, apparel and performance to spark conversation about difficult issues related to identity. Jackson is Inspired by the work of artists from Sonya Clark and Nick Cave, Melina Matsoukas, Marlon Riggs and Tarrel Alvin McCraney; to musicians like Cakes Da Killa and Solange, Beyoncé and Janelle Monáe; to scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw and Amelia Jones, and bell hooks; to writers like Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam. André uses language, visual/literal/metaphorical, to center the voices and images of blackness. Intersectionality is paramount, and influences the use of materials, which take the artist from the craft store, to the hardware store, from the quirky, to the fine and luxurious. The mixing, and juxtaposing, of materials lend humor and beauty to otherwise grave topics. Jackson received a BA in Fashion from Albright College and an MFA in Fibers from Savannah College of Art and Design.

Zoe Schlacter is an interdisciplinary artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Schlacter earned their BFA in textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design, where they learned both traditional crafts and contemporary design skills. Through weaving, quilting, sculpture, and installation, Schlacter’s work explores weaving as theory and practice, gendered expressions of personal style, and the creative potential of trans sexuality. Schlacter’s practice maintains a central question-- How does one mediate a trans body? Through textiles? Sex toys and prosthetics? Code switches and signifiers? Schlacter seeks to reconcile this question through open ended play and gaiety. Formally, Schlacter’s work strives for ambiguity: it straddles the line between representational and non-representational. Their work draws from a range of aesthetic sensibilities, including conventions of the Op Art movement, as well as Western textile pattern traditions. In addition to their art practice, Schlacter works as a textile designer, primarily designing children’s home goods and apparel. Across disciplines, Schlacter aims to make work that is bold and celebratory, prioritizing the viewer’s experience of visual pleasure. Schlacter was a Fellow in the 2017-2018 Queer|Art|Mentorship, and has exhibited solo shows at Spring/Break Art Show (2018) and Elephant Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee (2019).

Queer Threads: Fresh Voices is presented by The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum and Transformer, and hosted by The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.

Located on GW's campus in downtown Washington D.C., the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum celebrates the creative achievements of people in the capital city and around the world. The museum unites The Textile Museum, established in 1925, and the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies to engage the university and the wider community through collections, scholarship, exhibitions, and educational programs.

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Queer Threads: Fresh Voices

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