One Nation Under A Groove

Awesome crochet-ist artist, Xenobia Bailey has made a Revival Tent at the Brooklyn Museum. She also just held a crochet/knitting bee there last weekend, which you can be sure featured funk as Bailey’s work like Mothership 1: Sistah Paradise’s Great Walls of Fire Revival Tent is inspired by Funk. In fact the larger project is called Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk, where she crochets a “mythology designed to explain the presence of Africans in America. She relates the history of colonization to contemporary struggles for justice and equality for African Americans.” That according to the Brooklyn Museum who no doubt put it better than I could. She even uses electro thread that pulsates to the music to get its groove on.

Asked to explain her own work she said in an interview that it goes back to the ‘the “black holiness” tent revivals, and the “cosmic funk of the urban cultural movement.”’ And most importantly, “My work is a utopian prototype for the aesthetic of funk,” says Bailey. Time to get out those George Clinton and Parliament CD’s and get crocheting. Her work is up at the Brooklyn Museum till 12 March. Link

Jennifer Kabat
Posted on Thursday, 19th of January 2006 Permalink