Artist Adela Goldbard, Associate Professor in RISD's Experimental and Foundation Studies, and her collaborator, Marcela Ortega, discuss their work, Nochixtlán with Kate Irvin, Curator of Costume & Textiles. Nochixtlán, a needle-felted wool triptych commemorates a bloody conflict within Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2016, federal police attacked teachers and allies protesting educational reforms that denied better working conditions and threatened to suppress Indigenous narratives.
The triptych materially expresses the trauma of this event by using a technique that binds fibers through contact and agitation. It also provides a metaphor for the forces of Indigenous solidarity and collective resistance to government oppression.