Brooks Turner‘s work begins in research. Since 2018, he has encountered thousands of documents, objects, and photographs across various archives, seeking forgotten stories of anti-fascist resistance. He then digitizes these fragments of the past, recontextualizing their narratives in an open-ended archive of potential histories. The work he creates emerges from this archive as drawings, video installations, artist books, essays, publications, lectures, and most recently tapestries.Traditionally, tapestries depicted scenes from mythology or history, which functioned to justify the hierarchical power of the royalty, church, and aristocracy. Turner is interested in subverting these hierarchies by depicting narratives of anti-fascism and labor organizing, mythologizing this often-erased American history. A computerized loom translates his digital drawings and collages into thread; pixels become warp and weft, abstracting the image, a metaphor for the instability of history.
Image: Brooks Turner, A Pedagogical Task, 2023. Installation of five machine-woven tapestries. All tapestries 100 inches tall with varying widths. Image courtesy of the artist.