‘It’s Like Manifesting Ghosts’: Artist Stephanie Syjuco on How Textiles Can Conjure Up America’s Unsettling Past

California-based artist Stephanie Syjuco was born in the Philippines, and has
dedicated her career to exploring the ways in which history, race,
and labor skew our understanding of contemporary life.

Her work often centers on labor—especially the underrepresented
kind that tends to be done by women.

In an exclusive new clip for Art21, as part of its “Extended
Play” series, Syjuco sits in her Berkeley studio, cutting patterns
for women’s dresses in antebellum American styles.

She tells Art21 that though the works are to be
installed in a gallery at the Smithsonian’s Renwick
Gallery dedicated to the fabrication of images and textiles,
she makes no pretense towards accuracy.

The “costumes may not be historically accurate at all,” she
says.

What sets the pieces apart is their chroma green color, which is
usually associated with the green screens that serve as video
backdrops upon which imaginative landscapes are later
projected.

“It’s a color that you’re not supposed to see,” she says. “This
idea of American history is so embedded in our national psyche that
it’s almost invisible,” she continues, describing the many
stereotypes that are foisted upon women of the past. “It’s like
manifesting ghosts,” she says, “hauling forward all of this American
history.”

For those that missed her work at the Renwick, Syjuco’s solo
show, “Stephanie Syjuco: Rogue States,” is open now at the
Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. The exhibition further
explores national identities, and how popular culture and mass
media perpetuate our ideas of history.

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of
Art21’s Extended Play series, below.
“Stephanie Syjuco: Rogue States” is on view at the
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis through December 29,
2019. 

This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration
between artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking
artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s
flagship Art in the Twenty-First
Century television series is available now on PBS. Catch
all episodes of New York Close
Up and Extended Play and
learn about the organization’s education programs
at Art21.org.

The post ‘It’s Like Manifesting Ghosts’: Artist Stephanie
Syjuco on How Textiles Can Conjure Up America’s Unsettling Past
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