Through the Veil
2021
Interactive Textile Installation
Exhibited at
Through the Veil
Real Art Ways, 2021
Through the Veil is an interactive textile installation exploring perception as something mediated through obstruction, stigma, and controlled revelation.
A translucent veil partially conceals a fabric collage beneath, composed of fabrics, photographs, jewelry and letters. It positions visibility as contingent and incomplete—dependent on what is allowed to be seen and what remains hidden.
The work consists of a layered fabric collage obscured by a movable translucent veil.
The viewer is able to 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.
Within my family, bipolar disorder has been present across generations, often shaped by silence, misinterpretation, and fragmentation. The collage beneath the veil maps this history, assembling traces of experience into a surface that is both visible and withheld.
The act of moving the veil mirrors 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.
What is exposed carries the weight of what remains hidden, and the viewer’s interaction produces only partial access to a larger, more complex history.
Through the Veil does not offer full visibility, but a shifting one - requiring the viewer to remain within uncertainty, navigating between what is revealed and what is withheld.
Materials
Fabric collage
Translucent textile (veil)
Mixed media
Interactive installation
Variable dimensions