Sarah Zapata. If I Could

About

Zapata’s practice examines her position in society through the use of time based historical processes: a symbiotic practice of textile making and writing. If I Could employs traditional crafts used by women in a monumental, abstract manner, to be a tactile embodiment of gender and cultural performativity.

Named after "El Condor Pasa (If I could)", a 1970 song that employs American folk and traditional Andean sensibilities, the exhibition invokes the same synthesis of cultures drawing influences from traditional American rug making and Peruvian hand weavings. Through examining her cultural identity as a Peruvian-American woman, her sculptures employ labor-intensive hand processes that point to the eroticism and dynamism of women. Visitors are able to enter the space only after they have become barefoot, as a tantalizing ritual to changing space and mind through humility.

If I Could displays an environment to engage with other individuals through the intersection of material and mutual experience. In conjunction with the exhibition, Zapata has curated a reading and performance event taking place on Sunday, March 19th, including Andrea Arrubla, Kayla Guthrie, Monica Mirabile, and LA Warman.