Remote presentation for SECAC 2026 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

This presentation was part of the following panel:

Interwoven Counter-Archives: Craft, Memory, and Creative Reconstruction

"How do artists rebuild cultural memory when histories are fragmented, displaced, or misrepresented? This session explores creative reconstruction as a concept-driven methodology that weaves together research, making, and critical care. Framed by Interwoven: Threads, Patterns & Disruptions, we treat “threads” as lived knowledge, community practice, and inherited techniques; “patterns” as ritual, ornament, pedagogy, and visual language; and “disruptions” as the forces, migration, industrial change, institutional narratives, climate, and political violence, that reshape what can be remembered and what gets erased. We invite artists, scholars, and educators to share projects across any medium—fiber/textile, painting, installation, performance, photography, print, social practice, archival work, and digital forms, centered on the core ideas, not the toolset. Contributions may address: ethical reconstruction and “missing” archives; pattern as cultural code; craft as resilience and reinvention; and teaching approaches that connect making to context and responsibility. One possible case study is TIME: Journey to Nowruz, positioned as an example of building a counter-archive through research-based creative practice rather than as a technology showcase. The 105-minute session will prioritize dialogue through short presentations followed by a moderated discussion to connect methods, ethics, and pedagogy across disciplines."

The theme of SECAC 2026's conference was "INTERWOVEN."

"Rooted in a rich history of craft and reinvention, the 2026 SECAC conference will be guided by the theme Interwoven: Threads, Patterns & Disruptions. Known as the “Southern City of the Arts,” Winston-Salem has long woven together threads of tradition and transformation from its Moravian beginnings to its industrial rise in textiles and tobacco, and now into its second life as a hub for innovation and the arts.

Interwoven: Threads, Patterns & Disruptions evokes both the literal and metaphorical: the warp and weft of hand-made, home-grown, and self-reliant creative practices; the liminal nature of a city in transition, shaped by transplants, climate, and growth; and the patterns that emerge and disrupt across time, craft, and culture. The theme acknowledges the region’s textile heritage, where weaving connects Winston-Salem to Greensboro, High Point, and beyond while highlighting how the arts continue to interlace histories, communities, and futures.

SECAC 2026 invites artists, scholars, and educators to explore art as embedded in connections that hold memory, identity, resilience, and innovation within its threads. Through the interactions that occur at the conference including conversations, presentations, panels, and exhibitions, SECAC 2026 will honor the city’s layered past while extending its reach into the evolving landscape of contemporary practice."