Holly Chang

Ghost (2023)
Yiri Arts

Amelia Tru Harrell
Holly Chang
Titus McBeath

Ghost is an installation-based work that utilizes natural dyeing and sewing to explore the economies of visibility and disappearance through concepts of the ghost, material memory and decomposition.

The series of jackets are based on a bronze age bog coat pattern, a historical approach to sewing and construction from a single piece of fabric sewn together through a series of folds. My approach to making exaggerates the simplicity of the bog coat by extending the sleeves to over 6 feet long. The jackets are also created through patchwork construction with naturally dyed pieces and botanical printing.

In my textile practice, I utilize the processes of natural dyeing to explore ecological matters and material processes. The dyed materials I create are made with discarded textiles and rags and through my process, I repurpose them into works such as quilts and garments to explore identity. As someone who is mixed race, repurposing textiles is a method I use to understand how to I can reconstruct narratives around cultural identity to negotiate questions of self-representation and preservation. In my textile processes, alum (aluminum) acetate is used as a treatment agent or a fixative to preserve the natural dyes which I see as a process of indexing. I used this indexing process to print leaves and natural motifs found throughout these works.