Jen Wiebe explores themes of language, globalization, and hegemony through the settler lens of dual citizenship in the United States and Canada. Jen is a senior faculty member for the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, and the studio head for the exciting new international Foundation Visual Arts Online diploma program.
#HEGEMONY
The hashtag is an international signifier, a short-hand symbol which transcends barriers of language and links images, concepts and ideas across social media platforms. Words in English currently dominate the top trending internationally shared hashtags - a list that changes daily and serves as a metric for English as a lingua franca. #HEGMONY contrasts this current cultural phenomenon with handwork on vintage reproduction needlepoint works, pairing each image with a hashtag derived from the changing list of top 500 hashtags. The series exists as a “salon style” presentation of physical works, and simultaneously as digital media once the documented interventions are reposted using #HEGEMONY on social media platforms.
Contemporary use of textiles in visual culture has brought a renaissance and relevance to the media, often with objectives that subvert the original associations we have with handwork: a pastime for girls and women, frivolous or utilitarian in nature. With help from a growing list of artist/makers, the goal is to have twenty or more completed works framed for a salon-style hanging, with additional works completed during the residency period with help from visitors to the artist in residency space. Each work is a multi-layered collaboration: the original source for the image (often sourced from the canon of western visual culture), the mass-produced version sold as a hobby kit, the unknown hobbyist who completed the needlepoint, the intervention with the contemporary hashtag added to the work by hand, and finally the viewer. The project draws a parallel between the handmade stitch and the pixel: the works exist materially as physical objects and simultaneously as unique digital files.
Please join artist in residence Jennifer Lee Wiebe and a team of collaborators working with the tropes of western art history’s most familiar subjects in flea market needlepoints. This salon-style collection reflects both secular and religious imagery: portraits, landscapes, and still-life in a pairing with trending hashtags on social media.
Days and times in studio:
October 1: 12 – 5 PM
October 2: 12 – 5 PM
October 4: 10 – 5 PM
October 5: 10 – 5 PM
October 6: 10 – 4, 6 – 8:30 PM
October 12: 10 – 5 PM
October 13: 10 – 4 PM, 6 – 8:30 PM
October 14: 10 – 4 PM, 6 – 8:30 PM
October 15: 10 – 5 PM
October 16: 10 – 5 PM
October 18: 10 – 5 PM
October 19: 10 – 5 PM
October 20: 3 – 7 PM
October 21: 10 – 5 PM
October 22: 12 – 5 PM
October 23: 12 – 5 PM
October 25: 10 – 5 PM
October 26: 10 – 5 PM
October 27: 6 – 9 PM
October 28: 10 – 5 PM
October 29: 12 – 5 PM
October 30: 12 – 5 PM
