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A majority of the textiles consumed in the U.S. are produced by people who live in the Global South (particularly Asian countries, including China, India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam). This is largely due to manufacturing infrastructure, cheap or forced labor, as well as minimal safety protections. The cotton industry hasn't always depended on these conditions. There was a time when individual family units would grow, spin, and weave their own cotton for personal textiles or their local community. Tragically, different economic structures supported human trafficking systems leading to chattel slavery, debt bondage, and misleading contracts, taking us to a different scale of oppressive labor practices still existing today. Groundwork invites an alternative approach, encouraging local communities to develop sustainable and small-scale fiber systems.
Rarely do individuals in the U.S. have the opportunity to experience the entire growing and production process of textile goods from seed. Groundwork brings together local K-12 students and artisans from handweaving guilds centering community growing, spinning, and weaving unconventional plant fibers. Through hands-on active learning, students will nurture ecological mindfulness, preserve craft traditions, and develop local fiber systems.
Image Credit Photo courtesy of Harrison Truong
Edi Dai (she/they) is an artist, educator, and cultural producer living and working in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, California. They received an M.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art in 2019 and a B.A. in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine in 2010. They’re the recipient of the Martha Trevor Award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts as well as the Helen Watson Winternitz Award and the Post-Graduate Research Fellowship from the Yale School of Art. Group exhibitions of their work have been included at the Beall Art and Technology Center, Transmitter Gallery, SOMArts Cultural Center, Palo Alto Arts Center, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in New York. In 2018, they were part of the inaugural Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative Fellowship at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Currently, they’re an artist in residence at Pilgrim School, Los Angeles.
