Qualeasha Wood's The Algorithm Knows I'm Sad (Momma Knows Best) (2024) is included in Sown Together: New Voices in Contemporary Textile Art at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Charlotte, NC.
Curated by Dr. Anita N. Bateman and Asa Jackson, the exhibition opens on 11 September 2026 and runs through till 24 January 2027.
Sown Together: New Voices in Contemporary Textile Art brings together textile works that explore identity, memory, migration, and the African diaspora through innovative material practices. Drawing on the dual meanings of sown and sewn – homophones that evoke both the planting of seeds and the joining of the exhibition, it considers textile as both material and metaphor. Just as seeds are planted to cultivate future growth, featured artists in the exhibition weave together ancestral memory, familial ties, and lived experience to advance new perspectives on Black identity and belonging.
Rooted in the Indigenous and diasporic traditions of fiber and agriculture across the Atlantic, these practices reflect an enduring relationship to the land and to the natural materials it provides. For generations, weaving, quilting, beading, embroidery, and other textile traditions have served as vessels for cultural knowledge, resilience, and creative expression. This lineage continues to evolve through the work of a contemporary generation of artists who remain anchored in tradition while expanding its possibilities into new forms.
