In October 2021 I was approached by Caleb Sayan from Portland TextileX Month to create an exhibit that includes textiles culled from my What We Carried photo + writings projects of objects carried by refugees while fleeing from their homelands. When asked, I didn’t think that I had many examples with textiles, but after digging into my archives from What We Carried: Fragments and Memories from the Cradle of Civilization project with Iraqis and Syrian refugees, Stories of Survival: Object. Image. Memory. in collaboration with The Illinois Holocaust Museum with Holocaust and genocide survivors, I Am My Story: Voices of Hope in collaboration with The Immigrant Story with African women survivors of genocide, And DREAMs Deferred, collaboration with The Immigrant Story about DACA, I found to my surprise that I had several examples of textile objects that people chose to carry with them on their long and dangerous journey from their homelands to the U.S. 

 

I expect that many of the gallery visitors will be focused on textiles with their own expectations, and they will be exposed to unexpected narratives about diaspora and the importance of textiles in all of our lives. I love this accidental intersection of interests. Most of the people who see my collaborative works with refugees, genocide and Holocaust survivors are generally a self selecting audience who for whatever personal reasons come to see the work. I’ve always felt that that is a failing because that audience already "knows the material." I expect that many of the Portland TextileX Month audience will have read the description of What We Carried: Textiles and understand the work and be prepared for the content, but some will have an unexpected experience and read the hand written stories of fleeing ones homeland because violence. Because of creating “What We Carried: Threads" I better understand new ways to bringing in new viewers. For me, this is an aha moment that will inform future projects.