identity ecosystem
moravian academy upper school may 2023
In May of 2023, the Poetry and Short Story classes at Moravian Academy Upper School participated in a community art program based on the concept of using textile art as a narrative form. The identity Ecosystem focused on taking their personal short stories and poems written earlier in the year and learning how to transform them into a piece of physical textile art. They approached this process through conversations about using color, form, pattern and texture to represent emotions, tone, setting and symbolism. The students learned the ancient process of wet felting to create a three dimensional mushroom form. That form was then embellished through needle felting, embroidery and beading, covering four different forms of fiber art over this three week program.
Mushrooms were used as natural metaphor to represent the power of connection through storytelling. In the natural world, mycorrhizal fungi serve as a connective network between trees and 90% of plants on this planet. This network allows for communication between these plants, to send messages of warning as well as resources and to human beings, what is the act of storytelling if not a method with which we work to understand each other, to feed our souls and to communicate both the fundamental and the unknowable aspects of human nature. Each individual students mushroom served as a textile artifact representing their personal narrative while the underlying felted base representing that mycorrhizal network serves a the connective threads between each of the mushrooms, the pathways through which the stories are shared. In the final installation on the schools campus, a book was made of all of the students poems and short stories, paired with photos of their mushrooms for other students and faculty to peruse and become a part of the narrative network.
A huge thank you to Dr. Catherine Moore and MacNair Randall, the short story and poetry teachers who helped to facilitate and worked to create this residency program at Moravian Academy.