Using the quilts made by Gee’s Bend artists currently on display at Tate Modern as a starting point, this conversation will discuss a community of artists expanding traditions of abstract art using recycled textiles.
The Gee’s Bend quiltmakers are an intergenerational community of African American women living in the isolated settlement of Boykin (Gee’s Bend), Alabama. Many of the quiltmakers are direct descendants of the enslaved people forced to labour at the cotton plantation established there by Joseph Gee in 1816.
Though the Gee’s Bend quilts were originally made by necessity as bedspreads and blankets, the tradition has continued with new generations. In recent years the quilts have been shown in fine art museums and galleries internationally, celebrated for their striking abstract compositions and improvisational approach to shape, texture and colour. Currently on view at Tate Modern are quilts by Mary Lee Bendolph, Annie Mae Young, and Aolar Mosely.
