Veils of Forgetfulness

The title for this transparent textile work is from Annette Kuhn’s book, Family Secrets. It is further one of the selected passages for the workshop she led through the CCA Glasgow articulating her methodology: Memory Work. In a capitalist critique, embroidery sits on gridded waste canvas usually removed after the work is complete. Here, process is valued over finished product. The disintegrating cross-stitch patterns are derived from a book found in a market in Lviv, Ukraine while navigating alongside friend and mentor, Olya Kovalenko. This visit led to Our Ancestors Exist as a Reliquary of Whispers: Sites of Return, Reclamation and Interstice in Cultural Memory Studies published in KAJET Journal (Bucharest, Romania).