Narrative Threads
March 27, 2019 - April 24, 2019

Featured Artists:  Aimee Gilmore, Katrina Majkut, Julie Marie Seibert, Fayemi Shakur, Sara Jimenez, Sophia Wallace

Narrative Threads was a group exhibition of work by Aimee Gilmore, Katrina Majkut, Julie Marie Seibert, Fayemi Shakur, Sara Jimenez, and Sophia Wallace. The exhibition was a culmination of work created by the artists during their residency at the annual PES Feminist Incubator. 

The common purpose amongst these six cultural practitioners was the idea of connectivity through reconstructed (or newly constructed) narratives. Each creator came to the conversation via different media and discipline; including poetry, textile/thread based work, performance, book arts, and interactive installation, to name a few. What bound them together was their interest in reclaiming autonomy, agency, and ownership through storytelling. For far too long the stories of female-identified people had been codified through the lens of the outsider; leaving little to no room for some semblance of truth on the terms of the subjects.

Each project within this exhibition was built on the voices of multiple contributors. Some projects, such as those by Fayemi Shakur and Aimee Gilmore, relied on active collaboration with other women as the foundation of their works. Other works, in particular the embroidered portraits by Julie Marie Siebert, highlighted and paid homage to prominent contemporary Women of Color who were making dynamic socio-political shifts. Installations and didactic materials by Katrina Majkut and Sophia Wallace acknowledged, deconstructed, and rebuilt narratives around women’s health and safety. Multifaceted performance and video works by Sara Jimenez looked introspectively as a way to acknowledge the importance of self-generated narratives.