Space Cowrie and Perceiver/Perception
What to Expect
Space Cowrie includes 2D work, textiles, and video exploring the impact of and response to the traumas created by the historical institution of American slavery within the African Diaspora. Themes include the fracture of communal bonds, the fragmentation of identity and community, the struggle for survival, the search for safety and sanctuary, grief, death and connecting with the dead, the exploration of desire, and the finding of connection, belonging, and well-being.
Perceiver/Perception consists of abstract 2D works depicting the stories of victims of sexual violence. Each work is labeled with quotes from the victim. Themes include rape, attempts to silence the victim, and the impact of sexual violence on the victim’s psyche.
Le'Ecia Farmer's Space Cowrie
Space Cowrie
July 27, 2023 - October 7, 2023
Reception: August 3, 2023
Space Cowrie is a multimedia exhibition exploring African diasporic desire - the whirring space of longing, grief, joy, and healing. Through experimentation with traditional and nontraditional forms, Le'Ecia Farmer examines both the fragmented and whole sides of individual and collective desire. Artworks evoke sometimes tender and sometimes joyful experiences and reflect the artist trusting her intuition and ancestors. The exhibition includes portraits, textile pieces, constructed garments, and video installations. The work utilizes natural materials such as wool, raffia, and pigments in experimental ways.
About Le'Ecia Farmer
Le’Ecia Farmer is a queer Black parent currently based in Seattle, WA. She has studied fiber art (including weaving, basketry, natural dye, beading, and felting), visual art, apparel design, and mixed media in the Northwest, and traditional and contemporary textile printing in Ghana (Kumasi, Ntonso, Accra, etc.). She continually draws inspiration from the overt and covert connections between her cultural upbringing and art practice. Le’Ecia is keenly drawn to adornment and self-fashioning beyond surface-level connotations and plays with the various meanings that materials possess and views every medium as an opportunity to explore, experiment, or disrupt. Le’Ecia often engages with themes of diasporic longing, loss, and representation. She is drawn to materials like cotton, wool, raffia, natural dye, and vintage cloth and treats these materials as living and vibrating things. They carry our stories, as we do them.
Image: The Desquamation of Everything I Built Up for the World to See, Le'Ecia Farmer, Undyed and indigo dyed raffia, 2022. Header image: Detail from Self-Portrait Tapestry, Le'Ecia Farmer, Fabric, bioplastic, acrylic, raffia, cotton batting, 2023
Eymah Nuzhat's Perceiver/Perception
Perceiver/Perception
July 27, 2023 - October 7, 2023
Reception: August 3, 2023
Perceiver/Perception transforms the narratives of women’s experiences of sexual assault through the lens of the perceiver, into powerful visual autobiographies. Nuzhat portrays the stories and emotions of abused women – particularly when the perpetrators are family members – and how this alters the victim’s self-perception over time. Her work also exposes how society’s reactions can shun the victim, which leads to the glorification of the abuser. Perceiver/Perception features watercolors, handmade gold paint, and gilding on traditional hand-glued paper.
About Eymah Nuzhat
Eymah Nuzhat was raised and educated in Pakistan. While growing up, she always questioned her elders about the traditional, stereotypical gender roles – where different boundaries for male and female genders led to a differentiated societal experience.
Nuzhat explored the different narratives of women in her undergraduate thesis, hoping to be a positive voice for women who were shut down because of societal stigma. Since moving to the U.S., she has realized that the problem is at an international scale and has been trying to lead the fight through her art.
In her work, Nuzhat portrays the experiences of women whose stories have been harshly silenced by their community and in the broader society.