A quilt is traditionally created by a woman or many women and is most often used as a blanket, consisting of three layers of textile: a top (patchwork), padding, and a backing. The quilt as an object and as a process carries meanings, histories, and complexities in manifold ways, bringing many pieces and fragments together, which in the quilt are then rendered “whole.”

In this project the technique of patchwork and quilting is employed, both practically and metaphorically, as a method of regenerating rather than generating new materials and ideas, and to reclaim a female heritage and mode of creation. The materials gathered for the patchworks are mainly second-hand and dead-stock sportswear and household textiles, which demand of the design process a curious attentiveness to what already is in existence and a focus on crafting out ways to sustain and reintegrate these materials back into a daily landscape.

This collection aims to explore ways of assembling many “patches,” contributed to the project by nine female friends and fellow artists coming from different artistic backgrounds, where their works and mine share commonalities in topic and expression and thus together creates a larger patchworked quilt. The collection emphasizes the strength of many voices coming together, destabilizing the illusion of the artist as a single stroke of “genius.”