Collaborations and Commissions

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A Different Future in the Making

Studio Gang and Blue Tin Productions — Chicago, IL

Exhibition consulting, and textile installation. Fabric on fabric, 8 panels, 4 feet by 10 feet each. Illustrations of silhouette on large-scale curtain fabric partitioning the exhibition space.

What can bottom-up, systemic change look like in the garment industry—and beyond—when exploitation and violence are replaced by community and care? And what role might architecture and design play in this transformation?

This inaugural exhibition in Studio Gang’s new Gallery shows how these questions are being explored by Chicago’s Blue Tin Production, the first apparel manufacturing worker cooperative in America run by immigrant, refugee, and working-class women of color.

I worked as a consulting artist on components of the exhibition that would then be used at the Blue Tin’s new cultural center space. The above are original tapestries that I created using fabric that was picked by the garment workers of Blue Tin Productions based on their cultures. I designed the layout and sewed the appliqued fabrics on the curtains. The top segment is cut-out silhouettes of diverse people, based on the designs that the architects created for the model.