We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts by Black Women

About the Event

All of the work in the exhibition extends the story quilt tradition, a style of textile art that dates back to the once enslaved folk artist Harriet Powers who documented her life on a Georgia plantation through textiles. From offering protection amulets for students participating in the sit-in movement to naming the state sanctioned violence against Black and working class people today and creating alternative socio-economic formations, the quilts visualize the makers’ personal memories and experiences in the Black freedom struggle. 

The exhibition organizes the quilts and their associated memories around the idea of gathering: we gather to collectively imagine new worlds, we gather to remember what we are told to forget, we gather to see one another, we gather to speak the truth, we gather to sojourn together. By taking viewers through a journey of the art, memory, and history that emerged out of gathering beyond…