Kapwani KiwangaBLEED

A site-specific work in naturally dyed fabric, reworking a quilt pattern said to have guided people north on the Underground Railroad.

Kiwanga turns the “flying geese” quilt motif into black, blue and crimson waves using three natural dyes. Pigment oxidized with Atlantic seawater recalls the transatlantic trade; pokeberries recall Delphy, an enslaved woman accused in 1816 of poisoning her enslaver with them; and indigo, grown on Southern plantations through the forced labor of enslaved people, speaks to ancestral ties to the land.

The dyes are fugitive, so the colors shift over the year-long installation in the museum’s second-floor project gallery.

Full details at studiomuseum.org