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Unidentified Woman is an exhibition in response to the collections of Historic Northampton by Boston based artist Jodi Colella.
WHERE: Historic Northampton 46 Bridge Street, Northampton, MA 01060
WHEN: March 10 - April 9, 2017
Opening Reception: Arts Night Out, Friday, March 10 5-8 pm
Gallery Talk: Margaret Bruzelius, Sunday, April 2 2pm
Gallery Talk: Margaret Bruzelius, Sunday, April 2 2pm
Jodi Colella engages with headwear and daguerreotypes from the museum's collections and responds to forces that have shaped women's identities since the 18th century. From the poke bonnet to the hijab women in particular have been subjugated by fashion dictates and social norms. Colella's headwear sculptures become a vehicle for a subversive coded language addressing the play between women's visibility and invisibility.
The show's title, Unidentified Woman, refers to the poignant anonymity of the daguerreotypes of women whose names and identities have been long forgotten. Mirroring larger cultural forces, Colella stitches together past and present identity politics to provide an alternative chronology where expression replaces suppression and sewing equals activism.
In Unidentified Woman Colella fuses her personal experience with her ideology to create work that contributes to the progress of both art and feminism.
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Images: POKE (bonnet), embroidery, patches, mixed fibers, wool shirt, 35x16x16 inches, 2017
BOUND, found tintype, embroidery, mixed fibers, 3x2 inches, 2016
Photo: Will Howcroft, Jodi Colella
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This Program is supported in part by a grant from the Northampton Arts Council, a local agency
which is supported by the Mass. Cultural Council, a state agency.
which is supported by the Mass. Cultural Council, a state agency.
