Through the Veil
2021
Interactive Textile Installation
Exhibited at
Through the Veil
Real Art Ways, 2021
Through the Veil is an interactive textile installation that explores perception as something mediated through obstruction, stigma, and controlled revelation.
A translucent movable veil partially conceals a fabric collage beneath, composed of fabrics, photographs, jewelry, and letters. The viewer can physically shift the veil, exposing different portions of the surface below. As the fabric is moved, the image is revealed in fragments rather than as a whole, producing a constantly shifting visual field.
The collage functions as a mapped surface - assembling fragments of personal and familial history with bipolar disorder into a field that can only be accessed in parts.
The veil operates as a symbol of stigma - specifically the ways in which mental illness is concealed, misunderstood, or selectively disclosed.
The act of moving the veil mimics the process of confronting stigma - revealing what has been obscured while recognizing that full clarity is never entirely possible. Revelation becomes an intentional but incomplete act.
Within my family, bipolar disorder has been present throughout generations, often surrounded by silence, misinterpretation, and fragmentation. In Through the Veil, what is exposed carries the importance of what remains hidden. The viewer’s interaction produces only partial access to a larger, more complex history.
Through the Veil does not offer a fully visible perspective but a shifting one, requiring the viewer to remain in uncertainty as they navigate between what is revealed and what is withheld.
Materials
Fabric collage
Translucent textile (veil)
Mixed media
Interactive installation
Variable dimensions