Author Ashley Occhino, Executive Director, Textile Society of America
One week ago, on April 16th, the Textile Society of America gathered in Long Beach, California, and online for our Spring 2026 Colloquium, (re)Membering. Designed as a hybrid convening, the program brought together artists, scholars, and cultural practitioners working across disciplines to explore textiles as sites of memory, identity, and cultural knowledge.
What emerged over the course of the morning was not simply a series of presentations but a layered conversation about how textiles function as living systems, carrying histories that are both deeply personal and structurally embedded. Across each contribution, a shared understanding emerged: textiles are not passive objects. They are active participants in how we remember, how we relate, and how we imagine futures.
Fafnir Adamites opened the program with a presentation that moved across time and scale. Drawing on the concept of the “carrier bag” as a foundational human technology, they challenged dominant narratives that privilege tools of conquest over tools of sustenance. Textiles, in this framing, are among the earliest systems of knowledge, enabling the carrying, storing, and transmitting of resources and information.
A key thread in this presentation was the idea of absence. Because textiles are inherently perishable, their histories are often read through what remains indirectly: impressions in clay, fragments, or traces. This absence has contributed to their marginalization within dominant historical narratives, yet it also speaks to their resilience and adaptability. From Viking sails that record journeys through repair, to Incan khipu encoding complex systems of communication, to embroidered garments that function as personal testimony, textiles emerge as dynamic forms of record-keeping.
Adamites also underscored the political dimensions of fiber. From labor movements to community memorials, textiles have long served as tools for protest, healing, and collective expression. Projects such as the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and the Chilean arpilleras remind us that textile practices often hold space for stories that are otherwise suppressed or overlooked.
In the plenary presentation, Maria Maea grounded us firmly in place. Working with Mexican fan palm fronds foraged across Los Angeles, her practice situates material as both subject and method. The palm, an introduced species tied to colonial expansion and urban development, became a tool for understanding the layered histories of the city. Through her sculptural works, which she calls Future Ancestors, Maea reframes ideas of permanence and value. These works are designed to decay, release seeds, and re-enter ecological cycles. In doing so, they resist institutional frameworks that prioritize preservation over process and raise critical questions about whose histories are stabilized and whose are allowed to transform.
Maea’s reflections on labor were equally significant. By centering collective making, often working alongside family members, she repositioned labor not as invisible infrastructure but as a site of exchange, storytelling, and relationship. The act of weaving became both material and social, a way of building what she described as “creative capital” rooted in care and shared experience.
The panel, moderated by Sobeidy Vidal, brought these ideas into the present, grounding them in lived experience and contemporary practice. Yasmin Mora spoke about her use of naturally dyed Oaxacan wool as a way of connecting to memory and lineage while navigating the complexities of a binational identity. Maru García reflected on the role of material experimentation, particularly through fermentation and biomaterials, as a practice rooted in care and relationality.
Bringing an institutional perspective into the conversation, Katrina Bruins, Executive Director of the Visions Museum of Textile Art, highlighted the role museums can play as facilitators rather than authorities. Her remarks pointed toward a shift away from extractive models of exhibition-making and toward reciprocal relationships with artists, communities, and cultural knowledge holders. In this framing, institutions are not simply sites of preservation but active participants in shaping how knowledge is shared and sustained.
Together, the panelists emphasized that working with textiles is also working with systems, with histories, and with responsibility. Whether engaging with inherited traditions, natural processes, or institutional frameworks, their practices ask us to consider how we enter into relationships with the materials and stories we carry forward.
What became clear throughout (re)Membering is that textiles offer more than a subject of study. They offer a methodology. One that is iterative, embodied, and attentive to both presence and absence. One that recognizes knowledge as something held not only in archives but in hands, in communities, and in the rhythms of making.
As TSA continues to expand its programming, this hybrid colloquium marked an important moment in how we convene. Bringing together in-person and virtual participants allowed for a broader and more inclusive exchange, extending the reach of these conversations while maintaining the depth of engagement that defines our work.
At its core, (re)Membering was about connection. Between people, across disciplines, and through time. It invited us to consider not only what we remember but how we remember, and what it means to carry those memories forward with intention.
We are grateful to the speakers, participants, and community members who made this gathering possible, and we look forward to continuing these conversations in the months ahead.
If you would like to watch the Spring 2026 Colloquium you can purchase access to the full recording of “(re)Membering,” by clicking here. It includes the keynote address, plenary presentation, and panel discussion. Your pass includes access to the Zoom recording until July 22, 2026.
This program is made possible in part from support from the Teitelbaum Family Fund and Latin American Fund.
