moss rug for amalia mesa bains

In summer 2022, I was commissioned by Amalia Mesa-Bains to create a large moss rug for her retrospective at Berkley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in 2023. Her installation, “Cihuateotl with Mirror in Private Landscapes and Public Territories” had previously been created with hundreds of pieces of preserved moss. For ease of installation in a travelling show, that moss carpet needed to become a real carpet.

I feel incredibly lucky and honored to have been chosen to create this for Amalia and for such an important show, the retrospective, “Archaeology of Memory” encompasses nearly 60 works spanning her career.

This rug was made with hand felted wool patches and latch hooked wool yarns, some of which were hand dyed. The rug measures 10.5’ x 13’ and was entirely latch hooked by hand over the course of two months.

Photos of the installation are credited to the BAMPFA team.