Shenequa Brooks

Sacred Cloth 1
cotton
pedestal 14 x 36 x 14 in. | cloth 59 x 60 in.

A black Caribbean textile interdisciplinary artist, my family cultural background, and Ghanaian experience develop my recent body of work. Digitally documenting women in my life working, cooking, cleaning, gossiping, and celebrating in domestic spaces are archived in my memory. I proceed to take those archived images and transform them into a pattern (on Photoshop) that is woven on the jacquard and floor loom.

Once the cloth is removed from the loom it is arranged and sewn into a sacred cloth. “Sacred” suggesting a space or moment in time shared intimately and lovingly between the body and cloth. The archived memories are woven into a series of sacred cloths that are performed on the body in relation to the sound of me weaving. The transformed memories symbolize the courage, power, pain, strength, and love taken from the relationships built between me and the women in my life.

© Shenequa Brooks