The Topography of Living

In describing boundaries, the works of artists Ged Merino and Aze Ong refer to the qualities of textile and thread - fibrous. Boundaries are fibrous in structure and in system. They are constructs emerging from personal, cultural, and political domains spun together into solid lines on the maps. And like these solid lines they are drawn to suggest and identify, but in reality, never to actually define. Exploring boundaries through fabric and thread is a method of contrasts. Fiber diffuses as much as it filters. Ged and Aze ask: what are the limits of boundaries?

The artistic practices of Ged and Aze are as much narrative as they are material. Their experiences of a life in transit has them familiar with a particular kind of map, one that grows, shrinks and changes through footsteps that are not always their own. Ged’s work draws from the metamorphic act of memory, where fabric both protects and changes the current experience of the past. Aze’s work is experiential in its dynamic forms, enacted through the dedication in her craft and the further layers she creates in her performance. Both artists incorporate external elements into their work: found objects, other people’s objects of recollection and images.

Steadfastly rooted in the condition of living, the artists navigate and create spaces of exchange ever-present at the edge of the boundaries. In their work, each stitch is a wall as much as a window, and every thread a line of connection.
-Nicole Decapia

“Stitching Boundaries “is made possible by a grant from the Queens Council on the Arts with public funds from the New York State Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council
with support from The Drawing Room Contemporary Art and The National Commision for Culture and the Arts