UNWOVEN THREADS

Department of Art History Gallery - University of St. Thomas

Feb 1 - June 22, 2022

After years of conceptually unweaving the fibers of her identity to understand her place in the context of her bloodline and this moment in time, Keobounpheng emerges to celebrate an enlightened foundational warp. Through geometry, color, and thread she imagines what is possible when our assimilating learned behavioral weft is removed.

Through geometry, color, and stitching UNWOVEN THREADS gives in to possibility by allowing complexity. The layered process lets me dance between sacred geometry and my own geometry while re-establishing personal identity in the context of my ancestors and my children. 

My art practice reflects the journey of creating space for self-examination and learning to see what previously was “un-see-able.” This prior inability to see the granular, nuanced impacts of Whiteness on myself, and my Whiteness on others, thwarted my ability to grasp the far-reaching generational price of its privilege. Only by lifting the veil of complicity have I been able to label the effects of isolation within individualism and patriarchy. From there I hold the void of lost wisdom, lost sense of belonging, and lost connection to ancestors.  

My broader body of work – FORCED/FORCE, BLOODLINE, UNWEAVING and WHITE OBLIVION – includes sculpture, installation, and public art. Using metal and fiber techniques, I examine my experience through the lens of epigenetics, ancestral memory, and assimilation. Informed by oral history from my grandfather, by the void of growing-up without grandmothers, and by ancestral mapping & historic research, I seek to untangle myself from Whiteness and a binary narrative.

These threads of reconciliation tie my broader body of work together, connecting my Finnish heritage with my suppressed Sami bloodlines. Why did my ancestors conceal themselves when they immigrated to the United States? Why did they come in the first place? What price are we still paying for the single story of Whiteness? As a White woman, I am responsible for examining myself and my lineage for the sake of my own mixed-race family. Furthermore, as a descendant of the indigenous Sami people, this decolonizing work is imperative for the health of our collective body, our earth.

Despite the interdisciplinary approach and a non-traditional take on traditional women’s handcraft, my work is rooted in the belief that the repetitive motions of handwork tie me to generations of foremothers - and to the wisdom that is passed from mother to child through blood. In this way, the work in this exhibition pushes beyond the oblivion, beyond complacency, awareness or even frustration. UNWOVEN THREADS transforms my responsibility and consciousness into imagination. Imagine if I had always known. Imagine what beautiful, complex, human existence might be possible beyond the reckoning.

-Tia Keobounpheng