Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Rachel Ivy Clarke: Material Interactions
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Rachel Ivy Clarke assigns specific fabrics, colors, and shapes to represent various data points about visitors, such as their hometown or the distance they traveled to get to the event, creating quilt designs based on their information. The resulting quilt is a collaborative snapshot of an event that brings together two seemingly disparate things: folk arts — a traditional form of slow, small, community-based creation — and data reflective of our contemporary society, which is rooted in rapid technological advances and the capitalization of mass communication and manufacturing. Shown together, the quilts provide a colorful and creative vision of different communities across the state while also providing a powerful example of how artists can help present data in a more visually effective way.