Clouds, Mangoes, Kisses, Drops (human bonds in fabric), 2023

In recent years, my artistic practice has shifted to focus on textile works and printmaking. This has been a result of working from home with my chronically ill, Disabled, and immunocompromised body.

I am interested in exploring the aesthetics intertwined with my mixed-race immigrant identity. Aesthetics here does not mean just the visuals: it includes the textures, the smells, the temperatures, and so on, of my materials and who I am. It includes the perceptions of gender that exist in artmaking. It includes how “accessibility” and “art” relate.

The focus on weaving in my artistic practice is the central way that I connect with these ideas. Weaving is an important cultural practice in the region that I’m from. Fibre work has become gendered labour in western colonial culture.

I work primarily with abstract shapes. Abstraction means to remove details or change colours of things, and focus on more simple shapes. Abstraction can include a lot of details, but they are not usually specific to any one object. Because of this, I can pay close attention to the ways colour and shapes interact. It also helps me to explore the cognitive and political implications of image-making. Abstraction can also help question the value of different materials and how they are used.

The piece I have made is in response to the DAAA interview with Miki Aurora. In her interview, a theme that stood out to me the most was something she named as “the fabric of human bonds.” I wanted to make a piece that was tactile, or touchable, and that included literal fabric. I specifically used denim because of its connections to the working class and its durability. The pieces I cut were improvised and not planned. I normally like to work with as little pre-planning as possible. Being spontaneous with my work helps soothe my anxiety. This is because I can focus on making more than thinking. Focusing on

process more than results also aligns with the Fluxus art movement. Miki is also interested in this movement, and she mentions it in the interview a few times as well.

I played around with the cut-outs and how they interacted. Most of the shapes are rounded. Round shapes are not commonly used in patchwork pieces like the one I have made here. They are a bit harder to sew, so I sewed all of these pieces by hand. I placed a lot of focus and intention on how they were bonded together. Because I used a dark blue thread, sometimes these bonds are invisible, or not easily seen. Sometimes, the thread contrasts a lot with the light denim. This makes the bonds more visible to sighted people. These differences reminded me of the contrasts between “mainstream” and “underground” cultures, that Miki points out in her interview.