Alternate Readings

2024

In this series of over 50 works, I shred, spin, and weave discarded New York Times Magazines to metabolize the climate, health, and social crises featured in their pages. Before shredding, I save text fragments from the articles, combining them into short poems to accompany each page-sized weaving. The tactile color fields offer space for reflections, while attending to the limitations of language and the splintered ways we often consume news. Drawing on histories and mythologies of weaving as subversive language, the project is both a feminist material archive in the face of disinformation and the undermining of journalism, and it is a way to weave counter-narratives that allow for grief while refusing despair.

Selections from "Alternate Readings"

installed at The Vestibule, Seattle WA

Selections from "Alternate Readings"

An almost limitless horizon / The margins of well understood science

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine (June 25, 2023, “The Trillion Gallon Question: California’s dams are vulnerable, and thousands of lives hang in the balance. How long does the state have to avert disaster?”), embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article. Photo courtesy of the artist.

We used to go into the forest

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine from October 29, 2023: ““Slipping Away: The scientists who are watching their life’s work disappear," embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

There was no plan for this/ An utterly new landscape

Widely cited scientific study/ Obviously useful and woefully uncertain

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine from July 17, 2022: “Can Planting a Trillion New Trees Save The World?,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

More meaningful connections/ Acknowledge and give voice to grief

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine from May 21, 2023: “Should You Be in Therapy? (Isn’t everybody else?)”embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

Data points on graphs/ Though their tears have been wiped away

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine from Aug. 20, 2023: “They Lurk Inside Our Everyday Stuff. What Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ Doing to Us?,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

Left: “Plans for peace/ Because I simply refused to believe it wasn’t possible”

Middle: “The certainty of a vastly changing world/ The threat and possibility of broader transformation”

Right: “A few fallen trees”

Shredded, woven New York Times Magazine from Nov. 13, 2022: “We live in an age of destruction, which means we live in an age of rebuilding,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article, each 9” x 11”

Identify fragments/ Small beginnings nourish larger hopes

Paper pledges/ Strategies of smiling delay

Shredded, woven New York Times Magazines from Oct. 30, 2022: “The New World: Envisioning a Future After Climate Change,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

Overwhelmed by this vision/ The jagged new world/ We think we know

Shredded, woven New York Times Magazines from Oct. 30, 2022: “The New World: Envisioning a Future After Climate Change,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article, each 9” x 11”

The landscape of possibility/ Remains ours to make/ From the microbial to the geopolitical,

Shredded, woven New York Times Magazine from Oct. 30, 2022: “The New World: Envisioning a Future After Climate Change,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

A half-used pencil/ To protect against the sun

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine from July 17, 2022: “Can Planting a Trillion New Trees Save The World?,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

Such a messy present/ Its distance from our ideals

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazines from Feb. 26, 2023: “Three years later, we still don’t know how to talk about what happened,” embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

Selections from "Alternate Readings"

Hunger for any frame of reference/ Horrendous things become ordinary

Inundation maps/ The evidence in front of them

Shredded, spun, woven New York Times Magazine from June 25, 2023: “The Trillion Gallon Question," embroidery thread, fragments of text saved from the cover article

Alternate Readings

Selections from "Alternate Readings"

Selections from "Alternate Readings"

An almost limitless horizon / The margins of well understood science

We used to go into the forest

There was no plan for this/ An utterly new landscape

Widely cited scientific study/ Obviously useful and woefully uncertain

More meaningful connections/ Acknowledge and give voice to grief

Data points on graphs/ Though their tears have been wiped away

Identify fragments/ Small beginnings nourish larger hopes

Paper pledges/ Strategies of smiling delay

Overwhelmed by this vision/ The jagged new world/ We think we know

The landscape of possibility/ Remains ours to make/ From the microbial to the geopolitical,

A half-used pencil/ To protect against the sun

Such a messy present/ Its distance from our ideals

Selections from "Alternate Readings"

Hunger for any frame of reference/ Horrendous things become ordinary

Inundation maps/ The evidence in front of them

The power of these frenzied moments/Rebuilding and reimagining at once

A value problem/ No small shift in mindset

Selections from "Alternate Readings" installed at Bingham Gallery