Billie Zangewa: Thread for a Web Begun

Billie Zangewa is a renowned fiber and textile artist who has created a body of work that explores the lives and contemporary intersectional identities of Black women. Through her hand-sewn silk collages, she reclaims a medium that was once relegated to "womens work" and delves into the familiarity, beauty, and sociopolitical drivers of the mundane. Her paintings illustrate gendered labor in a sociopolitical context, connecting the pieces to each other through a larger narrative about Black femininity and tugging on the thread of the viewers' own lived experience.

Format: Hardback
Length: 112 pages
Publication date: 31 August 2023
Publisher: Cameron & Company Inc

Billie Zangewa, a renowned fiber and textile artist, has conducted the first major career survey of her work, published to accompany the exhibition presented by the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. Titled Billie Zangewa: Thread for a Web Begun, the exhibition explores Zangewa's creation of literal and figurative tapestries that depict the everyday lives and contemporary intersectional identities of Black women. Through her hand-sewn silk collages, which primarily showcase Black women in the domestic sphere, Zangewa reclaims a medium that was once relegated to "women's work" and delves into the familiarity, beauty, and sociopolitical drivers of the seemingly mundane.

Beginning her career in the fashion and advertising industries, Zangewa employs her understanding of textiles to portray personal and universal experiences through domestic interiors, urban landscapes, and portraiture. Through the method of their making and their narrative content, Zangewa's silk paintings illustrate gendered labor in a sociopolitical context, where the domestic sphere becomes a pretext for a deeper understanding of the construction of identity, questions around gender stereotypes, and racial prejudice.

This volume showcases the past 15 years of Zangewa's work, as well as new pieces made for this exhibition. While many of these decontextualized pieces are autobiographical, they all portray a sense of intimacy and exploration of identity, connecting the pieces to each other through a larger narrative about Black femininity and tugging on the thread of the viewers' own lived experience.

Weight: 2024g
Dimension: 370 x 320 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781951836863