Dawson shows solo exhibition, “Soft Architecture,” at Principia College

Senior Lecturer Sage Dawson will show her solo exhibition, “Soft Architecture,” at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. The exhibition will open with a reception and artist talk on Tuesday, Sept. 15, and remain on view through Nov. 7.

Her work is about the politics of housing and labor that shape the American city. She has explored local history through the built environment, and recently her work has shifted toward understanding domestic labor in the Midwest during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By connecting textiles with labor history and urban studies, Dawson brings stories out of archival storage and into public conversation. She is drawn to analog approaches to technology and explores making that typifies historic domestic labor: banner-making, needlepoint, open-work, patterning, and stitching. In her prints, digital tools blend with traditional media to embrace a distinct, handmade mark.