Online Launch: April 16, 2021. In the culmination of three years of intensive work, Design Studies MFA candidates Amanda Thatch and Han-ah Yoo present their thesis work in two digital exhibitions representing recent installations in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery.
Online Exhibition
Han-ah Yoo: “Relationships: Invisible, but Extant”
Online Launch: April 16, 2021. This exhibition of creative works is designed to provoke awareness of the adverse ecological impacts of the fashion industry. During washing and manufacturing synthetic textile products, thousands of different chemicals and tons of microfibers are emitted, and the emission causes risks to aquatic organisms…
Amanda Thatch: “Tromp as Writ”
Online Launch: April 16, 2021. To weavers, the phrase “tromp as writ” means that the sequence of threading is repeated in the foot-operated treadling; a single set of instructions can function for both setting up the loom and for the movement of the weaver’s feet while working. The pieces in this exhibition explore the interaction of text and pattern through hand-woven images.
Woven Together: Hello Loom at Copenhagen Contemporary
Online Launch: Fall 2020. This exhibition explores themes of materiality, process and international collaboration. In 2019, University of Wisconsin–Madison associate professor Marianne Fairbanks and textile artist Sofia Hagström Møller invited a group of professional Danish weavers to contribute pieces produced on Fairbanks’s hand-held Hello Looms for a show at Copenhagen Contemporary.
Rapid Response Mask Collecting Project
Online Launch: Fall 2020. Since March of 2020 face masks have become our central tool in the fight against COVID-19. This exhibition seeks to understand the new ways in which textiles play a critical role in our daily lives as protective face coverings. It uses a “rapid response” collecting model to select masks for the HLATC which mark this contemporary moment as historic.
Sofia Hagström Møller: Weaving Threads Through Time and Space
Online Launch: Fall 2020. This exhibition of Danish fiber artist Sofia Hagström Møller’s work investigates the roots of Scandinavian textile design and celebrates the legacy that American weaving owes to these traditions. By translating her grandmother’s patterns through digital technology during a residency at UW–Madison, Hagström Møller’s art travels through time and space.
Harmony and Evolution: An Exhibition of the Chinese-American Art Faculty Association
Installed in Gallery: February 26, 2020–April 5, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. This exhibition showcases the work of art and design faculty from across the U.S. to address how art and design express cultural integration and creativity. The CAAFA represents the U.S. & China.
What Would a Microbe Say?
Was to be installed in Gallery: April 29-June 7, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. Artist Sonja Bäumel, collaborating with Helen Blackwell of the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry, explores the perception of what bodies are made of through microbes and the body’s surface. Bäumel reimagines skin as a fictional layer of communication, and as a multi-being landscape linked to the discovery of the human microbiome.
UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage
Installed in Gallery: February 5 – April 3, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. “UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage” seeks to humanize the word “refugee.” This multimedia exhibit features the sculptures of Mohamad Hafez, a Syrian-born, Connecticut-based artist and architect who re-creates war-torn domestic interiors within suitcases. HLATC pieces were placed in dialogue with UNPACKED.
Intersections: Indigenous Textiles of the Americas
Installed in Gallery: September 5 – December 6, 2019. Online Launch: Summer 2020. From the Andes to the Great Lakes, textiles reflect cultural narratives of community and tradition. This exhibit analyzes select textiles from HLATC and the Little Eagle Arts Foundation to provide a deeper understanding of the lifeways, movement, and stories of these objects.