Fold Unfold: A Project by Susan Falls and Jessica Smith

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This exhibition catalog documents FOLD UNFOLD, a project by Susan Falls and Jessica Smith. Coverlet weaving requires tremendous aptitude, but coverlets are not well known when it comes to southern material culture. In our research, we often found 19th and early 20th century samples folded up in closets, doubled over beneath beds, or stuffed unseen in chests rather than exhibited as artworks integral to the production of economic, political, and cultural values in southern households. To reframe these objects, we folded historic coverlets into a pillar to connote the foundational role of cotton in the emerging global economy and the role southern women played in the aesthetic narrative of their landscape. We also invited contemporary makers to weave overshot coverlets in a black and white color scheme. This palette was chosen not only to underline some of the ways we found color being used to signify class and race in our research, but also to draw viewers’ attention to the formal qualities of weaving work. Viewers can only glimpse the pattern, palette, and worksmanship of these coverlets when they are folded. To reveal these works, the pillars were taken down and the coverlets unfolded in a public performance. The objects were restacked at full size to form a minimalist contemporary sculpture meant to call attention to art/craft, formal/domestic, and nonfunctional/functional dichotomies.