To Prepare A Place For You

Ryan Scails, MFA 2024, Fibers

I’m a multidisciplinary artist deeply invested in material use histories. The context of how objects are constructed drives my interrogation of how technology is implemented. Using fiber-based sculpture and drawing as consistent mediums I speculate a world constructed in good faith; yet not entirely detached from where we live now. With a liberatory framework in mind, my work is rooted in efforts to contend with material abundance. Black and brown communities are often tasked with extracting resources in high demand, and at the end of a linear economy are then saddled with the detritus. My work rests in flux; constantly sifting through the imperial aggregate to make a way forward. It follows ancestral paths of vernacular construction that, through ineffable logic, have often inspired more rigid and hegemonic systems. From the survivalist traditions of enslaved Africans crossing the Atlantic with nothing but each other and the seeds to sustain them or the subversion of discriminatory bylaws into new labor rituals. The ways in which blackness has served to both disrupt systems and catalyze the very societal fabric around it is a testament to the abolitionist spirit. This work is an attempt to channel that spirit of necessitative industry, and build upon a legacy of craftscaping, in lieu of direct access to resources.  

I credit this work to the requisite holding and withholding practiced by Black Americans to ensure survival beyond the years in captivity.