The Embodiment of a Word
A thread can convey as much as a word.
The Nadenka Creative Association of textile artists that arose in the fall of 2014 in Omsk, Russia, and includes Anastasia Makarenko, Masha Alexandrova, Maria Rybka, Nadezhda Valetskaya, and Alena Iskhanyan proves this. They talk about themselves as one person: “Nadenka is examining her body, Nadenka’s body is turned not inward but outward, Nadenka’s body is not perfect.” They look for connections with themselves and with the outside world.
They became part of the New York City based Threads project on which I work as poetry curator, choosing poems to inspire textile work. The Threads project creates a connection between poetry and visual art. Poems are displayed next to the art. Nadenka brings their history of social activism to the project.
The textile art is positioned in a place of questioning. About their dresses increasing in size, from child to adult, Nadenka writes, “Nadenka is looking for a woman in herself and herself in a woman.” Their work is distinctly female. The dresses are embroidered with favorite girls’ names. Nadenka questions traditional gender roles by experimenting with how identity is formed. In their work overall, they encourage viewers to look at the current state of women’s rights. This is often done through embroidered statements.
Nadenka got their start as a sewing collective, making and embroidering clothes. It is this that drew me to them when I heard Nadenka member Nadezhda Valetskaya speak at the Eighth Floor gallery in New York City as part of an event featuring artists from the former Soviet space. As she showed photographs of the works, I felt connected to them since I had just started to sew and embroider myself. My first pieces were inspired by a poem. They utilized hearts made with French knots on clothing I had sewed. At that time, I sought out displays of textiles and here was this unexpected connection.
I attended the Eight Floor Gallery event with Virlana Tkacz of Yara Arts Group. As part of the Threads project, we decided to invite Nadenka to respond with their art to a curated selection of poetry. They accepted the invitation. We began our correspondence over email, but the real words were the art that was sent across the world.
The art was sent in the spirit of social activism. Nadenka speaks of “invisible domestic work,” which caused me to turn to Anne Boyer’s Garments Against Women. Boyer writes about performing tasks that do not define her, acts performed instead of writing: “Every morning I wake up with a renewed commitment to learning to be what I am not. This is the day I will sew a straight seam, cut a piece of fabric precisely…” She writes about the hard work that will go unrecognized. “Each garment holds in it hours of a garment-makers life.”
One of Nadenka’s works shows that many women’s rights were established less than one hundred years ago. Statements such as “1918 – my right to an education and a profession” are embroidered on garments.
We recently had a show at Bliss on Bliss Art Projects in Queens, New York, a space directed by Ged Merino, whose work also became part of Threads and is expressive in a different way, using color and vivid strokes. He grounds Nadenka and Threads in a new kind of diversity, as do participating artists Waldemart Klyuzko from Ukraine and Aze Ong from the Philippines.
We welcomed people into the small space of Bliss on Bliss at the edges of COVID. Nadenka’s pieces were together and by themselves in a room. They included a dress in which the coordinates of longitude and latitude were written — the longitude and latitude of home, Siberia, from which these artists come. They begin with the place that has collective meaning, Omsk, and then move to places that have personal meanings for each member.
Other pieces that responded to the same poem were crocheted shapes that resemble a woman’s anatomy, but could refer to the lands of Siberia and a cloth book embellished in almost imperceptible designs in which the thread matches the cloth. Another cloth book has shiny satin pages with objects that refer to life in Siberia, an empty pillbox to reveal the aches that are medicated. Finally, a white tablecloth is stained with red embroidery. The pieces responded to poems by Oksana Vasyakina, Nina Iskrenko, and Kenneth Koch.
I found a connection with the art pieces. They have inspired my art and made me reconsider what it is to sew, to weave thread together with words. I have used words to decide what fabric to use whether plush or silk. I have used words to decide on the shape of the design.
A thread can stand in place of a word. A thread can bend to a word.
Olena Jennings is the author of the poetry collection Songs from an Apartment and the chapbook Memory Project. Her translation with Oksana Lutsyshyna of Artem Chekh’s Absolute Zero was released in 2020 by Glagoslav. Her novel Temporary Shelter is forthcoming in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and an MA from the University of Alberta. She is the founder and curator of the Poets of Queens reading series.