Alexa Kari 5/13/22 Alexa Kari 5/13/22

Moved"

Textiles and woodblock printmaking, February-April 2022

Textile & woven woodblock print installation, February-April, 2022

Flaten Art Museum, Northfield, MN

Celebrating the traditional crafts of textiles and woodblock printmaking, this work is the result of repeating the same processes of carving, printing, ripping, and weaving over and over, until they open up a new experience beyond our everyday use of textiles. Challenging the audience to access a heightened sense of corporeality, I meditate upon Pennina Barnett’s words:

“to touch is always to be touched. And one never emerges intact from any encounter, for to be touched involves a capacity to be moved, ‘a power to be affected.’”

I welcome you to interact with this piece by touching and moving through it.

Watch the process of creating this piece!

Alexa Kari 12/9/21 Alexa Kari 12/9/21

Textiles: Pillars of Community

Textile exhibition, December 2021

December 3rd-21st, 2021, Kelsey Theater Gallery

Exhibition Statement:

In conversation with the covert sewing circles used for lesbian community building in the 19th and 20th centuries, Alexa’s practice is primarily concerned with the discourse between social network formation and the necessity of craft as a practice of survival and beauty. Problematizing the notion that objects which are accessible and necessary must be strictly pragmatic, Alexa playfully reimagines everyday objects as conduits of optimism, reverently calling back to motifs of lesbian oral history. In a society where homoerotic desire is relegated to the private sphere, Alexa challenges the notion of “respectable queerness” by inviting her audience to interact with intimate objects of her everyday life, blurring the line between private and public. In a bold reclamation of textile craft, Alexa invites her audience to collapse their conceptions of “subject” and “object,” and the “inherent” versus the “performed.” Alexa invites us to consider: How can we find joy in the ordinary?

- Grace Cline, Alexa’s girlfriend

This exhibition features work created by Alexa Sorensen in an independent study with John Sauer. Quotes throughout the exhibit are from “Folds, Fragments, Surfaces: Towards a Poetics of Cloth” by Pennina Barnett.

“Scrap Collages #1-20”

Fabric scraps, machine sewing

“This is a space of fragments, a space of the incomplete. But this is not a lack or a failure. Why tie up loose ends?”

“Tapestry, Vest”

Yarn, woven and knitted

“If “soft” suggests an elastic surface… that yields to pressure, that is not a weakness, for an object that gives in is actually stronger than one that resists, because it also permits the opportunity to be oneself in a new way.”

“Table Runner, Jacket”

Cloth, quoted and embroidered

“Cloth addresses the most intimate of senses: touch… while it is possible to see without being seen… to touch is always to be touched. And one never emerges intact from any encounter, for to be touched involves a capacity to be moved, ‘a power to be affected.’”

Selected original clothing designs

As I continue to design and sew clothing, my goal is to create pieces that express my femininity without being necessarily tied to the male gaze and patriarchal understandings of femininity.

Selected last textile work

I often use projects in other classes as opportunities to explore textile materials and processes. Here, I include a selection of past textile work as a starting point for my semester’s explorations.

Alexa Kari 5/7/21 Alexa Kari 5/7/21

Zine Suits (Community Care Playclothes Series)

Mixed media, April-May 2021

Vinyl, zippers, buckles, zines, art supplies, April-May 2021

These pieces are included in my installation, “Community Care Closet.”

Community care is a practice that requires intentionality; we must “put it on” every day, just like we do clothes. With these pieces of clothing, made of clear vinyl, I comment on the necessity of transparency and accessibility in all community care practices, and create a community space for both the creation and consumption of knowledge and art. These suits, one holding a zine library and the other holding zine-creation materials, are meant to draw community in and provide the resources needed to share ideas directly with the community.

Zine Library Overalls:

Designed as a nod to the working class, these overalls hold a library of zines that is meant to uplift the knowledge that comes from our communities, instead of relying on the pretentious, inaccessible knowledge that is upheld as superior by capitalism’s elites. Depending on where they are worn or displayed, different zines relevant to the community they are situated in will flow in and out of them.

Zine Creation Suit:

In order to encourage the active creation of knowledge, this suit provides viewers with the materials needed to make their own zine to add to the zine library overalls. My goal with this piece is to validate that each of us has important knowledge worth sharing with our communities.

Alexa Kari 4/18/21 Alexa Kari 4/18/21

"playtime ! :)"

Wood & found fabric, April 2021

Inviting the viewer to interact with the piece, these colorful blocks can be arranged to create a multitude of abstract faces. Play time is for everyone:)

Alexa Kari 4/18/21 Alexa Kari 4/18/21

Untitled Tapestry

Textiles, December 2020

Yarn, hand-woven on hand-made loom, December 2020

Alexa Kari 3/23/21 Alexa Kari 3/23/21

"NOBODY TAKES BETTER CARE OF OUR COMMUNITY THAN US"

Found fabric, February 2021

Hand-stitched tapestry

Found fabric, February 2021

Alexa Kari 3/23/21 Alexa Kari 3/23/21

Wealth Redistribution Corset (Community Care Playclothes Series)

Wire & fabric, March 2021

Using corsetry to to symbolize the upper class, this top is boned with wire that extends out of the top and spills over the shoulders. This movement is intended to represent wealth flowing from the upper class into the pockets of the working class, present in the qr codes to mutual aid funds hanging from the sleeve structures. These qr codes link to funds in my community, Northfield & the Twin Cities, allowing the viewer to interact with the work by heading to these sites to either redistribute their own wealth, or claim resources that they are currently in need of.