drawing giraffes

Fabric Workshop & Museum

My assignment: go to a museum/gallery/interesting place of my choice and analyze the design objects. My first reaction: utter joy and the feeling that I definitely chose the right major. My project: explore Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop & Museum (FWM) located on 12th and Arch Street.

I entered the empty museum and was greeted by a lone security guard, who directed me to the gift shop, where I bought my entrance ticket ($3) and met the gallery guide. The guide took me to the elevator and up to the fourth floor, where LA native Pae White’s Summer XX exhibit was on display in an expansive concrete room with gray walls. I wrote in my journal, “I feel like I’m walking through a loom.” The artist took the text, “Hasta La Muerte,” (Until Death) from graffiti near her studio and applied the sentiment to mourn one of her mentors. The way the bright red string formed angles of parallel lines, crossed, twisted, and connected, I felt like an image was being projected onto the wall the way an image is conveyed in a retina. As a viewer, I felt integrated into the work as I walked under it, through it, and sat beneath it.

The third floor gallery housed the Dutch design collaborative of Makkink & Bey, who design sustainable, adaptable, temporary, nomadic furniture. Picture a wardrobe opening up to a bed with a sawed in half chair as a step stool. Imagine a sewing machine table with a toilet seat fitted beneath. The furniture is whimsical and uses a combination of wood and soft fabrics in different pastel shades. I can imagine this furniture being functional in a country farmhouse or for a child’s playroom, but I can’t picture the average middle-class American buying such a thing from Crate & Barrel. Makkink & Bey’s design esthetic poses many questions about how we live and how culture impacts the spaces we dwell in. They explore the relationship between people and objects. 

The second level showcased two short films, Niagra by Mark Bradford and Brenda by Carlos Avendano. Both videos explore public displays of sexuality and gender orientation. Bradford portrays the people who dwell in an urban environment in his film of an African American male strutting down a slum sidewalk. Avendano explores  urban decay in public spaces, inner-city neighborhoods, and consumerism in his films, signage, photography and billboards. The wall running the length of the gallery leading to the screen was covered in gray paper panels taped off along a grid structure, which made me feel as if I too was walking down a grimey city street instead of a spotless museum.

Finally, the main floor gallery of the FWM held an exhibit called “The Death of the Moth” by Jennifer Steinkamp, a time-based projection of gracefully blowing fabric of different patterns. The layers of tattered fabric, presumably sheets, were carefully animated and vividly colored. They were so realistically rendered, I felt as if I was beside a backyard laundry line as linens air dried in a gentle summer breeze. The imagery explored the passage of time and motion through space.

My experience at the Fabric Workshop & Museum was surreal. I was the only patron there on a Tuesday afternoon, and the emptiness of the space let it be a more intimate and private viewing experience. The vibrant pops of color seemed brighter since my eyes were the only ones seeing them and the designs seemed more powerful since I was the only one there to appreciate them. The artwork spoke louder because of the pervasive stillness and the exhibits were frozen in time because of the absence of human activity. My interaction with the objects on display  was more sincere and personal, because I didn’t have to interact with anything but them.