Soft Archives
Soft Archives (2025)
IA&A Hillyer, Washington, D.C.
April 5 - April 27, 2025
Lead Curator: Arianne O’Hara, Co-Curator and Exhibiting Artist: Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida
Exhibition Text
Soft Archives: Threads and Textures of History highlights how textile artists weave fibers of individuality into a tapestry of collective memory. Featuring six early-career artists across the U.S., the exhibition examines diasporic narratives through fiber. Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida’s South American weavings document life after political violence in diasporic Chile, while Davvon Branker’s cyanotype fabric installations imprint images of Afro-Caribbean lives. Kayla Dantz transforms photographs into wearable archives, and Hùng Lê fills archival silences of the American War in Việt Nam with indigo dyes and embroidered cyanotypes. Annais Morales highlights Mexican-American nostalgia in the California borderlands, and lyra purugganan’s filet crochet explores desire, joy, and colonial legacies in the Philippines. These artists showcase fiber’s potential as an archival material capable of building history. The tactile nature of textiles invites an intimate engagement with the past, becoming a canvas upon which underrepresented voices can be amplified while challenging dominant historical accounts.
Exhibition Programs - Recordings
Interview with Arianne O’Hara
Interview with Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida
Interview with Davvon Branker
Interview with Kayla Dantz
Conversation with lyra purugganan and Hùng Lê
Artist Roster
Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida (co-curator)
Lead Curator: Arianne O’Hara
Soft Archives was documented by Davvon Branker in April 2025.