BRAID/WORK
@ Rootwork Gallery
645 W. 18th St. Chicago, IL
Opening Friday, July 8th, from 6:30PM - 9PM
On view through Sunday, August 14th
BRAID/WORK is a collaborative art project that crosses over and through the disciplines of performance, sculpture and social engagement. It speaks to the history and aesthetics of handwork and braiding culture as well as identity politics, adornment and labor through a process oriented, material and performative lens.
This culminating exhibition is the result of Sarah Beth Woods and Fatima Traore’s 6-month durational project. The show is comprised of staged tableau photographs and hair sculptures that skillfully weave reality and fiction, using Woods’ and Traore’s working relationship as a point of departure.
Fatimata Traore is a Malian-American professional hair braider, teacher, and entrepreneur. Traore is president of the Illinois Association of Hair Braiders, a member of the African Political Action Committee and board member of Mali Relief. She has recently participated in Chicago-based braiding events at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Hyde Park Art Center, and the South Side Community Art Center. Traore is a graduate of the National School of Administration Bamako, Mali.
Sarah Beth Woods is a Chicago-based artist who uses the languages of craft, sculpture and public engagement to explore femininity through material culture, artifice and adornment. Her work has been included in shows at the University of Michigan’s Work:Detroit space, Girls Club, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, A.I.R gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the Bob & Roberta Smith Kunstverein at Coventry University, Coventry England, NYU Florence, Florence Italy and in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Western Exhibitions, The Franklin, Hyde Park Art Center, and Woman Made Gallery.
Woods and Fatimata Traore are the recipients of the 2015/2016 Crossing Boundaries Prize through Arts+Public Life & Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago.
Additional programming: Join us for an artist talk and demonstration moderated by Tracie D. Hall Sunday, August 14th, 2-5pm. Exhibition runs through August 14th.
Rootwork Gallery hours:
Saturdays 2-5pm
second Fridays 6:30-9pm
or by appointment.
Image: BRAID/WORK | Sarah Beth Woods and Fatima Traore | Photo documentation: Cecil McDonald Jr. | 2016
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Tags: Braid Work, Cecil McDonald Jr., Chicago, Fatima Traore, Pilsen, Rootwork Gallery, Sarah Beth Woods, Tracie D Hall
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