Bio
Tali Weinberg creates weaving, sculpture, and drawing in response to worsening climate crisis, tracing relationships between extraction and illness; personal and communal loss; and corporeal and ecological bodies. She combines plant-derived fibers and dyes, petrochemical-derived medical materials, climate data, and abstracted landscape imagery to explore the inextricability of ecological and human health. Weinberg’s work is in the collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and the Georgia Museum of Art. She has participated in exhibitions at the Griffith Art Museum (Australia), Zhejiang Art Museum (China), 21C Museum in Oklahoma City, University of Colorado Boulder Art Museum, Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (PA), Center for Craft (NC), Dreamsong (MN), and Form & Concept (NM), among others. Her artwork has been featured in the New York Times, National Resource Defense Council’s onEarth Magazine, Surface Design Journal, Ecotone, and The Journal of Data Visualization and will be included in the upcoming Fifth National Climate Assessment. Honors include an Illinois Artist Fellowship, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Serenbe Fellowship, Windgate Fellowship to Vermont Studio Center, SciArt Bridge Residency for cross-disciplinary collaboration, a residency at New York’s Museum of Art and Design, and grants from the Puffin Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, and Oklahoma Arts Council. She has taught at California College of the Arts and Penland School of Craft. Weinberg received her MFA from California College of the Arts and an interdisciplinary MA (Textiles & Social Theory) and BA (Peace Studies) from New York University. She currently lives and works in Champaign-Urbana, IL.
Artist Statement
My art practice traces relationships—to earth, to places I’ve called home, and to others—within the context of worsening climate crisis. I create weavings and sculptures from a combination of petrochemical- and plant-derived materials, data, and landscape imagery to explore the inextricability of ecological and human health. These works draw out connections between extraction, rising temperatures, species loss, and the buildup of plastics in our bodies and ecosystems. My most recent research focuses on relationships between people and plants and the interconnections between circulatory systems inside and outside the human body—from lungs and arteries to forests and watersheds. I materialize climate data as abstracted woven landscapes and coiled sculptures, using plant fibers and dyes, and petrochemical-derived medical tubing and fishing line. I employ textile strategies to turn expired plastic medical waste into sculptures that allude to the more-than-human world. And I transform photos I took of trees in a fire-scarred landscape into woven, plant-plastic forms that allude to human anatomy. Together, these works trace relationships between extraction and illness, between personal and communal loss, and between corporeal and ecological bodies.