MILLICENT KENNEDY STUDIOS

Belong Gallery, August 2022

Inspired by Ray Yoshida's Adoptive Home for Misplaced Muses, and the misfit nature of broken and obsolete objects, this solo exhibition of Millicent Kennedy's work pulls from multiple series of work.

Obsolescence features a series of stretched quilted works made by dismantling inoperable tools and tech and quilting them between prismatic textiles. Their encapsulated and homogenized presentation conjure similarities to fossils. The objects are both preserved and buried.

When they were produced, these advancements were created on a mass scale, and like all material culture, reflect our desires from their time of use. These objects designed and built by so many hands, are held by hands once more to be dissected and shrouded, contrasting processes of labor, mass production and slow stitch.

What We Kept is the partner series to Obsolescence and sources materials from donors. The artist asks participants to donate items that they are ready to let go of and asks them to share the story of how these things came into their lives, and why they are ready to let go of them.

This process pairs what can be a solitary process of hand quilting with storytelling and community. It allows space for all manner of human stories retold through objects. Cumulatively these works are a study in breaking down and abstracting form, the lasting or temporary nature of design and what it means to mend, and archive.