Adela Goldbard

A collaboration by RISD faculty Adela Goldbard and artisan Marcela Ortega, this needle-felted wool triptych commemorates a bloody conflict in a community in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. On June 19, 2016, federal police attacked teachers and allies protesting educational reforms that denied teachers better working conditions and threatened to suppress Indigenous narratives. Burned buses remained untouched almost a year after the deadly clash. The last image shows members of the Teachers Union at the site of the massacre performing a traditional dance in the indigenous dress of Oaxaca’s eight regions.

The needle-felting technique used here, which binds wool fibers through contact and agitation, materially expresses the trauma of this event. It also provides a metaphor for the forces of Indigenous solidarity and collective resistance to government oppression.

–Kate Irvin, curator of costume and textiles