Textiles for Remembering: Richie Wilde Lopez & DeJeonge Reese
Opening Reception: Sat, Jan 17, 1 — 4 PM
Click here to RSVP for free.
Regular Gallery Hours: Tue — Sat, 12 — 5 PM
Textiles for Remembering brings together the work of Philadelphia-based artists Richie Wilde Lopez and DeJeonge Reese, two practitioners who use fiber and material to honor the stories we carry and the histories that shape us. Through weaving, embroidery, synthetic hair, found fabric, and culturally resonant objects, both artists explore how textiles hold memory. Cloth becomes a site where personal and collective experience is preserved, not only through visual form but through labor, lineage, and lived ritual.
Richie Wilde Lopez traces ancestral knowledge across the Caribbean and Latin America, drawing attention to the quiet strength embedded in textile practices that survive despite cultural erasure. His woven forms recall the body, the hammock, and the suspended spaces where rest, care, and memory converge.
DeJeonge Reese’s work engages the powerful histories encoded in Black hair, quilting traditions, and everyday acts of preservation. Her braided and hand-sewn pieces reveal the cultural, spiritual, and political dimensions of Black identity, showcasing how both hair and textile work serve as vessels of guidance, resistance, and generational continuity.
Presented together, these works invite viewers to consider cloth as an archive that absorbs touch, holds ritual, and carries stories forward across time. Textiles for Remembering is an exhibition about what we inherit, what we choose to protect, and how material practices can keep memory alive in the present.
Related Offerings: Visitors are also invited to participate in workshops and conversations with the artists, creating opportunities for community reflection and shared making throughout the exhibition’s run.
Stitching Your Social Legacy with Richie Wilde Lopez
Saturday, February 7, 2026, 1 — 4 PM | Free
Contribute to a shared embroidery project reflecting hopes for the future.
Click here to register.
This community embroidery workshop invites participants to contribute to a shared textile work created in response to Philadelphia’s Semiquincentennial. Through simple embroidery techniques and conversation, participants will reflect on the legacies they inherit and the ones they choose to leave behind.
Memory Quilt Making with DeJeonge Reese
Saturday, February 21, 2026, 1 — 4 PM | Free
Learn basic stitches and contribute to a large-scale community embroidery project representing diverse voices and legacies.
Click here to register.
In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore how materials and textures hold personal and collective stories. Using layered fabrics, needle and thread, and a meaningful image, participants will create a small quilt rooted in memory and lived experience. No prior art experience is required.
Artists & Curators in Conversation
Sunday, March 1, 2026, 1 — 4 PM | FREE
Complimentary Coffee & Pastry.
Conversation begins at 2 PM
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Join artists Richie Wilde Lopez and DeJeonge Reese alongside curators Lori Waselchuk and Qiaira Riley for a public conversation exploring textile practices as living archives of memory, culture, and care.
Grounded in the themes of Textiles for Remembering, the conversation will reflect on how fiber-based practices carry personal and collective histories through touch, repetition, and ritual. The artists and curators will discuss their approaches to working with textiles as sites of remembrance, resistance, and cultural transmission, drawing connections between material process, ancestry, and contemporary meaning making.
The discussion will also consider the role of communal making, storytelling, and care-based labor in sustaining memory across generations. Audiences are invited to listen, reflect, and engage in dialogue as part of an open, accessible exchange.
This program is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, and advance RSVP is encouraged.
CURATOR STATEMENT:
Textiles are among the oldest storytellers we have. They are made by hand, lived with, repaired, worn down, and carried forward. This exhibition brings together two artists whose practices honor that legacy through work that holds memory, lineage, and the everyday rituals that shape us. Their pieces remind us that remembering is both personal and communal and that the textures of our lives are formed by the people and stories that come before us.
