Gallery Talk: Fabricated Boundaries

Curator & the artists, will discuss the exhibition "Fabricated Boundaries: Filipina American Textile & Fiber Artists", in a gallery talk scheduled for

Saturday, 2:00- 3:00pm

About the exhibition:

Pacita Abad, Mic Diño Boekelmann, Jeanne F. Jalandoni, and Patricia Orpilla, artistsTiffany Lynn Hunt, PhD, curator

Discover the extraordinary work of four Filipina-American female artists as they explore the many layers of identity shaped by place, migration, memory, and family. Through deeply personal works, they reflect what it means to live between cultures, to carry heritage across borders, and to navigate life far from one’s ancestral homeland. Together, their art forms a woven tapestry of stories that honors past generations while expressing the complexity of Filipina American life today.

Working in painting, sculpture, and printmaking in combination with textile and fiber techniques, these artists push the boundaries of traditional materials. They use fabrics such as abaca (banana fiber), piña (pineapple fiber), and cottons dyed with ikat and batik methods. Their practices incorporate embroidery (burda), sewing (pananahi), weaving (paghahabi), crocheting (paggagantsilyo), and papercutting (pabalat).

At the heart of the show is habi, the Tagalog word for weaving. Like threads coming together on a loom, the artists’ stories are interconnected—stories of migration and memory, women’s labor and artistry, cultural pride and transformation. Through this shared process, they create a powerful collective narrative rooted in both tradition and change.

This event will be held in-person at the museum.

Please direct any questions about this event to the museum's main contact for this event, Patricia E Poku-Speight at [email protected].

Image: Mic Diño Boekelmann, Self Portrait, 2024. Oil on board in a Manila Envelope, 10 x 14.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist, photograph by Y.E.C. Creations.

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Host or Publisher American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center