In this presentation, BGC fellow Sequoia Barnes will share her work as an artist, and model a unique approach to disseminating practice-based research. She will talk about her use of archival research to inform her newest project “Useable Several Times,” which focuses on racist iconography within domestic spaces, as well as how semiotic contextualization informs her performances of amplified stitching as sonic interventions.

Sequoia Barnes is a textile artist and sculptor who specializes in ceramics, pottery, quilting, soft sculpture, stitching, embroidery, installation, and assemblage. Her work often mixes these different genres via the influence of Black Southern Assemblage. Her work also utilizes Black radical art practices in the form of reappropriation, via African American folklore and Afro-Surrealism, in order to deconstruct racist tropes and white supremacist representations of blackness.

Barnes’ practice is predominately informed by her theory-led exploration of Black radical art practice which is the creative practice of subverting white supremacy through the (semiotic) deconstruction of Black diasporic representation and symbolisms. However, her work is also heavily informed by post-structuralist semiotics, specifically but not limited to Derridan semiotic theory and the deconstruction of the “other.” Her work is centered around foregrounding the processes and rituals of creating “art” as equally important as the resulting object itself. Her process typically starts with a theoretical statement or exploration. She then uses her practice to articulate and disseminate her theoretical understandings regardless of the skill set(s) she is using.