MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
May 29,2023
This week we recognize Tali Weinberg, Tali Weinberg and her art practice merging climate data with textiles.
"While petrochemical pipelines run through the earth, petrochemical-derived medical tubes are pipelines that run through and around our bodies. As the detritus of our human life on land runs downstream and then circulates back through bodies, watersheds are one window into the interdependence of ecological and human health. In the “Drainage Studies,” 2021 (above) temperature data for each of the 18 major river basins in the continental US is materialized as hand-dyed, color-coded cotton and coiled along bundles of medical tubing that are entwined together."
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"I translate climate data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into abstracted landscapes and waterscapes, materializing the data with plant-derived fibers and dyes and petrochemical-derived medical tubing and fishing line. These woven datascapes and coiled sculptures merge a practice of record keeping with a practice of grieving, and merge an expression of scientific research with an expression of lived experience. This project started in 2015 as an investigation of the mechanisms through which we come to understand climate crises, from data and journalistic narrative to embodied and affective experience."
Bodies on the Line, 2014 (above) draws text from conversations with women activists from the San Francisco Bay Area, Weinberg's home at the time. The quotes used were originally selected in response to an exhibition space in Patterson, New Jersey, a town built on the manufacturing of silk by a labor force of working-class women who put their bodies on the line at work, and in defense of better work. With silk thread on silk organza, the artist hand-stitched fragments of these conversation in order to intertwine the material and labor history of the place with the struggles of contemporary women. In 2016, Weinberg was invited to evolve the project for the Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art in Zhejiang Province, China—another city built on the production of silk.
Water Bodies, 2019 (above) is a series of works that interpret annual average temperatures for oceans and lands, hemp-dyed with plant and insect-derived dyes, and petrochemical-derived fishing line. The strands of dyed hemp warp threads color-code 138 years of temperature for the earth’s surface. This materialization of rising temperatures is held together with petrochemical-derived fishing line to create woven patterns that mimic waves. While the fishing line’s reflective quality evokes the glimmering surface of a body of water, the combination of materials and data also suggests the link between climate crisis, extraction of petrochemicals, and the accumulation of toxic plastics in our bodies and ecosystems.
Memories of Future Fires, 2022 (below) is a series that explores forest fires; smoke inhalation; microplastics in our ecosystems, blood, and lungs; and loss of homes past and future. These hand-woven pieces start with photographs which the artist took in a fire-decimated landscape in the Pacific Northwest. She then re-materializes the trees with petrochemical-derived monofilament. In woven form, the trees also reference hearts and lungs as she looks to the connections between life sustaining circulatory systems inside and outside the human body.
Tali Weinberg interweaves petrochemical and plant-derived materials, data, and landscape imagery to draw attention to the harms of ongoing petrochemical extraction, from rising temperatures and species loss to the buildup of toxic plastics in our bodies and ecosystems. Weinberg’s work is held in public and private collections and is exhibited internationally including at the Griffith Art Museum, 21C Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, University of Colorado Art Museum, Georgia Museum of Art, Center for Craft, and Form & Concept gallery. She has been featured in the New York Times, onEarth Magazine, Surface Design Journal, Fiber Art Now, and Ecotone. Honors include an Illinois Artist Fellowship, a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Serenbe Fellowship, Windgate Fellowship to Vermont Studio Center, Lia Cook Jacquard Residency, SciArt Bridge Residency for cross-disciplinary collaboration, and a virtual residency at New York’s Museum of Art and Design, among others. She has taught at California College of the Arts and Penland School of Craft. www.taliweinberg.com
Featured images (top to bottom): ©Tali Weinberg, Drainage Study: Clot, 2021, temperature data for 18 major rivers in the continental US, petrochemical-derived medical tubing, organic cotton dyed with plant and insect derived dyes and mineral mordants, 8 x 15 inches; Gilded Valley, 2015, from the “Field Studies” series: Agricultural landscapes woven from California-grown organic cotton dyed with plant dyes and mineral mordants, 18 x 25 inches; Bodies on the Line, 2016, installation for Hangzhou Triennial Of Fiber Art, Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, China, 10 panels, each 42 in width x 80 in height; Water Bodies (Ocean), 2019, 138 years of annual average temperature for 71 percent of the Earth’s surface (ocean), hemp dyed with plant- and insect-derived dyes, petrochemical-derived fishing line, 35 x 50 inches (photo by Philip Maisel); Lungs, 2022, from Memories of Future Fires series, 86 x 112 inches (photo by Rebecca Heidenberg); Self-portrait of the artist.
