Banners for the Commons
My newest work envisions alternatives through the act of remaking – a metaphor of the need to create just and sustainable systems. A series of textile assemblages, “Banners for the Commons,” addresses the interrelated issues of labor rights, climate crisis, and the necessity of collective action. Banners were a highly charged, symbolic object of the early 1900’s, made by workers of the vanguard International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
I am inspired to make this work as the global garment industry is plagued not only by worker injustice but additionally causes significant environmental despoliation. I am aesthetically and materially reimagining these banners with used garments. By altering the material evidence of overconsumption to produce something new, I invite playful but intentional reimaginings of the garment industry. Many of my new works are red and gold, reflecting the colors of the original ILGWU banners. Today these colors convey alarm about unfair working conditions, warn about our climate crisis and of the urgent need for resistance today. They demonstrate our capacity to reinvent mutual systems of exchange with garment workers around the world.
The installation images are from a recent exhibition at the Alice Rogers Gallery in Collegeville, Minnesota.