Self-curated group including artists: Krista Anara Cibis, Delaina Doshi, Gigi Gastevich, and Rin Visaney Scholtens
re- [prefix] 1: again : anew | reconcile, reconceptualize 2: back : against | reconstruct, recapture
A word-forming element that seeks to either undo or echo. A reversal or repetition of an action, re- entangles past, present, and future. A contradictory state, somehow both erased and duplicated. Penelope weaves, unweaves, and reweaves. Is the resulting shroud a reconstruction of her work each day before or is it a replacement, each new iteration a replica of the one before? Does one negate the other, render the work before it unimportant? Or does it depend on whether we prioritize the outcome or the process? While there is only one shroud to show for, Penelope’s labors tell a different story: to unweave and reweave is a refusal to her suitors, a renewal of her dedication and love to Odyseus, and a reclamation of her agency. These efforts cannot be measured in material, but they certainly become measured in time. Consider in turn the efforts of making. Whether futile or fertile, the doing is necessary. To try and try again—reiterate, reimagine, repair, recreate. Fiber processes build themselves out of repetition and rearrangement, the same motions over and over again in a series of infinite combinations. Simultaneously done before and never before. The result is both recognizable and alien; the reiteration is rarely an exact replica, more often a reinterpretation borrowing the source material and responding in turn with the pieces which resonate. Back and forth, again and again.
