While in residency Sangi Ravichandran and Rachel Wallis worked with the community to create a textile based project titled Manchester, Manchester, Manchester. They used cotton, wool, and silk, as well as dyes native to the US, England, and India to discuss the shared history between cities. Throughout multiple dying and weaving workshops, they facilitated conversations about where fabric comes from, who produces it, and what it means for a place to base their economy on textiles, which are often complicated by trade, labor, colonialism, slavery, and industrialization. Manchester, like its namesake in England, was deeply entwined in this complex history – a site of investment and economic growth at one historical moment, and then abandonment and decay in another. Across oceans, they can see echoes of these same systems at play in the textile cities of India, like Coimbatore, sometimes referred to as the Manchester of India.

About the artists:

Sangi Ravichandran, is a queer immigrant activist-scholar, artist, art therapist and healing practitioner. She was born and raised in a textile city in India and moved to Chicago in 2007 to pursue fine arts, where she rediscovered her love for fiber and colors. She worked as an anti-violence community organizer and arts-based therapist for several years in Chicago before returning to the academy to pursue her doctoral education. Her art and research lie at the intersections of investigating law, criminalization, surveillance and counterinsurgency through a prison and military abolitionist lens. Through her art, research, teaching and organizing practice, she hopes to collectively build a world that is geared towards gender and racial justice.

Rachel Wallis, MA, is a community taught crafter, artist, and activist. Her work focuses on collaborative quilting projects addressing issues of race and social justice. Past projects have included Gone But Not Forgotten, a community quilting process creating a memorial quilt for individuals killed by the Chicago Police Department, and Inheritance: Quilting Across Prison Walls, a project using quilts to help rebuild relationships divided by incarceration. Rachel was also the inaugural Project Nia artist in residence 2020-2021.