This week, we welcome Natalia Nakazawa, a Queens-based interdisciplinary artist working across painting, textiles and social practice. Drawing on her experiences in education, arts administration and community activism, Nakazawa negotiates spaces between institutions and individuals, often inviting participation and collective imagining. Her woven tapestries incorporate public domain images from the online archives and collections of major institutions, inviting critical visual storytelling about migration and moments of cross-cultural exchange. She has held the position of assistant director of EFA Studios for eight years, supporting a large network of contemporary artists through subsidized studio spaces and professional practice opportunities in midtown Manhattan.
She writes: “On March 8, as the reality of the pandemic came into sharp focus, I completed the physical installation of ‘Our Stories of Migration,’ a matrix of textile panels on a 36′ x 16′ wall, modeled after Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map. Taken as a whole, these 20 triangular pieces can be folded into a three-dimensional icosahedron globe. It addresses the connectivity of all of the land masses of the Earth — emphasizing that we are all one. This project is still unfolding — stay tuned for more coming up in 2021. #ourstoriesofmigration”
“Our Stories of Migration” encourages critical engagement through personal and cultural histories. Additionally, visitors draw their own maps — which are continuously added to an animated archive — and write responses to the prompt question: “What does it mean to be a global citizen?”
