An artwork hung on the side of a small building.

Emma Fitts

New Zealand
Interdisciplinary
Artist in Residence, 2019
www.emmafitts.com

A portrait of a person against a dark background.

Artist Statement

I create textile installations that draw on research into alternate histories, storytelling, and events. Most recently my work has been informed by the histories of women who were overlooked or under-represented in the traditional archive. The idea of biography; the histories of architecture and textiles; and a broader social context are integral elements of my work. With a focus on the tactile and the domestic and through engaging in a conversational research process, I offer an alternative approach to that of a traditional historian, one that stresses affect, emotion, and feeling.

While at Headlands

While at Headlands I will be working on Ideal Museum: IFF a project that looks to the landscape as an exhibition space for a series of new textile works informed by the life and work of Beatrice Tinsley, a British-born New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist. Using the mediums of textile and photography, I will document a staged event in the Californian landscape informed by Tinsley’s notions of time and space and the long and entwined history of women’s art practices with the landscape.