Multidisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher Sara Rosenthal explores time, transformation, and material memory through weaving, installation, video art, and performance. From handwoven “mold” and tapestries featuring reimagined stone mother figures to deeply personal work responding to the Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed her childhood home, Rosenthal’s textile practice moves between rupture and repair, the microscopic and the cosmic. As co-Director of Argo Arts in Athens, Rosenthal also fosters international artistic exchange while researching and writing about sustainable textile futures.
Photo credit: Sara Rosenthal
(TSA) You’ve actually worked with the TSA Communications Committee previously and helped organize these “Member Monday” interviews in the past. Now that you’re on the other side of a Member Monday feature, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your work?
(Sara Rosenthal) I am a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher. My art practice encompasses painting, weaving, installation, video art, and performance. Drawn from diverse literary and metaphysical research, my work investigates time and transformation, through many different lenses: mythological, philosophical, poetic, and literary, as well as Natural History Museum collections and wild fermentation. My work examines traces of history through physical and cultural transformations, dealing with everything from ancient stone statues of mythological figures to the way mold breaks down rotting lemons. I try to render ephemeral sensations and abstract concepts: layers of memory, the materiality of time, the way things transform as they age. I am drawn to metaphorical research, and enjoy rendering the textures of things that disintegrate, crumble, decompose, rust, fade. I like to work in series, investigating concepts at macroscopic (cosmic) and microscopic levels. At times I literally bring my microscope to museums and capture textures for inspiration. My experience of queerness and an interest in wild magic often inform my choices in the studio.
Recently, this work took a highly personal turn, as I created a show based around the recent wildfires in LA, which destroyed my childhood home and hometown. My art practice provided a safe space through which to begin to process that very real confrontation with physical transformation on an enormous and devastating scale. Visiting the site of my former home, time collapsed, and the familiar became estranged and seemingly ancient: an archaeological dig site. My studio practice allowed me to engage with this heavy emotional material, resulting in new works: hand-wound black wax thread around the rope of a lead plumb bob, an installation piece with black woven tapestry fragments surrounding transparent prints of a charred landscape, an assemblage of delicate woven threads layered between drawings on transparent paper… traces and remnants. Metaphors of rupture and repair abound in textile practice; engaging with textile methods and materials allowed me to dance around the edge of the wound, and begin to turn towards mending.
In addition to my art studio practice, I am a writer and researcher. The themes that I explore in my studio practice certainly inform my creative writing as well. But I also write nonfiction pieces, mostly focused on sustainable textile materials and specific micro-cultures of textile creation, emphasizing the cultural diversity that is fast fading in today’s increasingly homogenous cultural landscape.
Aside from making my own art and writing, I am also co-Director of Argo Arts, a multifaceted arts organization in Athens, Greece, that includes Argo Studios, an artist and writer’s residency program, and the Argo Annex, an artist-run project space. There, among other things, I lead the programming and curation of the Argo Annex project space.
Photo credit: Sara Rosenthal
(TSA) Does your work tend to reflect a communal process or more of an individual practice (or both?)
(SR) At the moment, my work follows two distinct pathways: one is more external, reflected in Argo Arts, a project space and artist residency I co-run in Athens. It is its own art project and practice, and relies heavily on my ability to weave connections among networks of people, intertwining visiting artists/writers from abroad with relevant members of the local artistic community here in Athens.
The other pathway of my work is internal. My studio practice encompasses many different individual and solitary pursuits: reading, writing, researching, weaving, embroidering, drawing, painting, and devising performance.
There are times when these pathways cross (for example, I co-devised and participated in a performance with one of our guest artists at the Argo Annex, our project space, last June), and times when they tug at each other. This can be challenging, but as a weaver it helps me to view these often opposing dynamics from a textile perspective, re-considering the tension between those modes as a necessary element just as the tension in a taut warp is necessary for weaving the weft.
(TSA) Do you have any textile-related books / resources that you particularly recommend?
(SR) Yes! On Weaving by Annie Albers is my weaving bible, and I find it incredibly comforting to return to her careful way of explaining the logic behind the craft. In terms of researching textiles from an academic perspective, I adore The Textile Reader edited by Jessica Hemmings, and Lines by Tim Ingold.
My partner once very thoughtfully gifted me a small library of textile-related books. Highlights from that collection include the artist folios of Magdalena Abakanowicz and Sheila Hicks, and The Story of the Red Thread by Cecila Vicuña.
Then there is a great series of practical, inspirational textile-y guides published by Batsford. My favorite among them is Contemporary Weaving in Mixed Media by London-based weaver Rachna Garodia. I liked Rachna’s creative approach to textile art so much that I reached out to her to ask if she’d be interested in teaching a course at Argo. She was! So this June, we will be hosting “Exploring Creativity through Textiles”, a 10-day course based on the techniques in her book. (There are still spaces available for those who are interested!)
I often listen to podcasts while in my studio, and I love “Articles of Interest” hosted by Avery Trufelman and “Haptic & Hue: Tales of Textiles“ hosted by Jo Andrews. And whenever I am stuck on a new technique, or want to try to learn a new handweaving stitch, I turn to The Weaving Loom website, run by a lap loom weaver named Kate. (https://www.theweavingloom.com/)
Photo credit: Sara Rosenthal
(TSA) Are you actively collecting textiles? Please share something about this collection or about the process of collecting in general.
(SR) I am actively collecting textiles in a very slow sense. Each time I travel, I am magnetically drawn to the heritage textiles of that particular place. While I would love to be able to collect big textile items (like carpets) from each place I visit, I don’t have the resources for that. So instead, I collect small things, precious objects that reflect the craft cultures of each place: an embroidered walnut shell from Armenia, a tassel from Sarajevo, a string of pom poms and a small embroidered tapestry from Mexico, a tuft of sheep wool from the mountains in Crete, handspun yarn from Georgia, part of an antique saddlebag from a flea market in Morocco, a lace earring from Cyprus, and on and on. Textiles are my favorite way to learn about a place’s culture, so this collection of small mementos forms a kind of craft-based atlas.
(TSA) How do you imagine that humanity might engage with textiles in the future? Or What are some lessons from the past that we might consider as we work with textiles today?
(SR) There is so much to be learned from the way we have engaged with textiles in the past, and now is a particularly critical time to reassess the role textiles play in our lives, including industrial production methods, pollution, and resource use.
For the last several years, I have been researching and writing about sustainability in textiles, including articles that focus on a return to more sustainable techniques of clothing production, using artisanal methods that emphasize longevity over fast fashion. With this research, I have been drafting entries for the forthcoming 10-volume Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of World Textiles. My entries focus on sustainable natural textile materials and sustainable synthetic textile materials, respectively. One challenge in assessing sustainability is that it is a slippery term. There is no single overarching benchmark for determining whether a textile product or material is produced in a way that is truly sustainable: everything depends on context and comparison.
I find current textile innovations absolutely fascinating and awe-inspiring. True collaborations are taking place that invite contributions from the fields of bioengineering, fashion, chemistry, handicraft, and so many others, all in the name of shifting the dial towards sustainability and away from extractive policies and resource scarcity.
Given the huge impact of textile production on the climate crisis, the most important lesson we can learn from the recent past is the ecological impact of our practices. Asking difficult questions (How will this be shipped? Where does it come from? Who has worked to produce it and under what conditions?) can help steer us towards a different approach to our purchases and productions.
There is another, hazier, dimension through which we can learn from the textiley past, and that involves a turn towards rhizomatic thinking. Textiles are one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, forms of human technology. Relegated to the realm of ‘women’s work’ and thus often overlooked in historical studies, textile creation may have preceded building, tool-making, and other ‘essential’ human constructs. Because textiles are ephemeral, we cannot study textiles of the ancient past the way we can ancient ruins made of stone. But I see in the patient, collaborative labor required to make (and mend) nets, shelters, clothing, and structures, an alternative mindset to the frenzied forced productivity demanded by contemporary consumer capitalism. There is a way of slowing time, and tending to the craft that gives me a small and fragile hope for collective endeavor. It is the same feature I witness in mold: individual threads called hyphae join together to form mycelium, collaborative networks that, together, decompose old forms and allow life to thrive. In looking towards the ancient past of textile creation, I perceive the possibility of an alternative contemporary mythology, one that elevates the community and allows space for both vulnerability and bolstering. A network that provides support through the collective, to where it is needed most.
Photo credit: Sara Rosenthal
(TSA) What projects are you currently working on / looking forward to?
(SR) I am in the process of finishing several textile-related projects that have been waiting in my studio for several years now: one is a woven sculpture of an oversized lemon, bursting with handwoven “mold”. The other is a tapestry that features printed images of stone ‘mater matutae’ statues from the Museum of Capova in Campania, Italy. The images of these stone ex-voto mother statues from Campania are printed on natural linen, which I then shredded to make a ripped warp, and have been re-weaving and embroidering since: a tribute to these crumbling stone mothers, gradually becoming lost to time.
Other projects I am currently working on include a literary fiction novel (I’ve recently finished draft number one!), my ongoing studio practice (this season I am focused on painting), and the aforementioned Encyclopedia articles.
In addition, of course, I am looking forward to the ongoing developments at Argo, including continuing my curatorial practice with our upcoming exhibitions in the project space, welcoming new residents throughout the year, and participating in Rachna’s textile course this June.
Photo Credit: M R Webber
Sara Rosenthal (b. 1991, she/ they) is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist, writer, weaver, performer, researcher, and co-Director of Argo Arts. In her studio practice, Rosenthal crafts expressive works in diverse media that investigate mythological, material, and cultural transformations at both macro and micro scales. Born in California, she graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Performance, Design, and Practice from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. Rosenthal has studied at HISA on Paros (GR) and at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. She has lived and worked in Spain, where her research on the art of flamenco culminated in lectures at UCLA and the annual Kristeva Circle Conference. She has been artist in residence at SNETHA in Athens; Can Serrat in Catalunya; Carousel Institute of the Arts in Poolsbrook (UK); Inteatro in Polverigi (IT); and Arts Letters & Numbers in New York. She has hosted interactive workshops at the Research(er) Dialogues Conference at Birmingham City University and at the Tate Modern museum in London.
In 2020 she was awarded an emerging artist fellowship through The Braid, Los Angeles, performed at the Jerusalem Biennale, and presented “Vegetal//Flesh”, a solo exhibit at 2/3 Project Space in Athens. She is a founding member of LAC (Lady Art Collective). In August 2023 she presented a solo exhibition entitled “If one day these [ ] become ruins… ” at DESVIO in Lisbon, and in June 2025 she performed at Waking Life Festival in Crato, Portugal. Her most recent solo exhibition, “Tracing a dead landscape” opened in October at the Argo Annex in Athens (GR). Rosenthal has contributed research and writing to the Textile Society of America and the forthcoming 10-volume Encyclopedia of World Textiles published by Bloomsbury, among others. Her paintings and textile works have been exhibited and sold internationally.
She is also Co-Director of Argo Arts, a multifaceted arts organization in Athens (GR) that includes Argo Studios, an artist and writer’s residency program, and the Argo Annex, an artist-run project space.
@saratrueart
@argo_annex
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