Indisposable: Structures of Support After the ADA, Chapter 8

TEXERE by Indira Allegra

Loss is a normal part of the human experience. Yet so often losses go unrecognized, or we are urged to forget them, get over them, and move on quickly. Indeed, we need more rituals and objects to acknowledge our losses so we can live more fully in the present moment and not be trapped by past experiences. TEXERE is a global, art based web platform which transforms human losses into a new kind of memorial object – an ever-evolving digital tapestry created with posts authored by people using the site. The creation of the digital tapestry will exist as both a new kind of memorial object and visual evidence of the need for mutuality and interdependence as the basis of care work that is shared between people. Every TEXERE participant becomes an artist in collaboration with other artists worldwide in a new practice of memorial making.

Please join us on Thursday, February 24 for the debut launch and demonstration of TEXERE by Indira Allegra. Indira will place this project in the context of their work with an artist talk followed by a conversation with Therese Noël Allen, a therapist specializing in trauma-informed psychodynamic and somatic therapy. The conversation will be moderated by exhibition curators Jessica Cooley and Ann Fox.

Event attendees will be invited to contribute an image to text to commemorate a personal loss to be incorporated into a collective digital memorial tapestry.

About the curators

Jessica A. Cooley and Ann M. Fox have been curatorial collaborators since 2009. Jessica is a scholar-curator currently finishing her dissertation titled Crip Materiality, which forwards a new methodology to address how ableism affects the understanding and valuation of the very fibers of art materials within curatorial and conservation discourses; Ann is a Professor of English at Davidson College in Davidson, NC, with specialties in disability studies in literature and art. They have co-curated two disability-related exhibitions together, RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women, and Sculpture and STARING. In addition, both Jessica and Ann have been invited to give national and international talks, hired as consultants to lend their expertise to issues related to disability and art, and contributed to a broad range of other curatorial projects and publications.

About the speakers

Indira Allegra is deeply informed by interiority, animism and the ritual, relational and performative aspects of weaving. As a conceptual artist and recognized leader in the field of performative craft, they take weaving off the loom and use it as a framework to explore interlocking tensions which haunt non-human and human relationships. Allegra’s performances and installations explore the poetics of sites and objects, revealing what they might be memorials to. It is their combination of past experiences as a sign language interpreter, domestic violence counselor, sex worker and union organizer which affords them the courage to work with grief, longing and desire for correspondence.

Their work has been featured in ARTFORUM, BBC Radio 4 and Art Journal, and in exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design, the Arts Incubator in Chicago, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Center for Craft Creativity and Design and the Museum of the African Diaspora among others. Their commissions include performances for SFMOMA, de Young Museum and The Wattis Institute. Allegra’s writing has been featured in TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, American Craft Magazine, Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art and Thought, Cream City Review and HYSTERIA Magazine among others. They have been the recipient of numerous awards including the United States Artists Fellowship, Burke Prize, Gerbode Choreographer Award, Art Matters Artist2Artist Fellowship, Mike Kelley Artist Project Grant and Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award.

Therese Noël Allen is a licensed psychotherapist, expressive arts therapist, somatic therapist, artist, and former graduate-level professor of psychology. Her work focuses on complex and developmental trauma; grief; the experience of having a body; story, symbol, imagery, and soul-making. Having re-planted herself from the Bay Area to the rural redwoods of Northern California, Therese is creating space in nature for urban folks to engage in healing. She works often with queer and trans community, sex workers, and survivors of developmental trauma. www.thereseallenmft.com