Sarah Zapata's Architectural Installation Explores Material Evolution

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Artist Sarah Zapata's latest exhibition,“In escape from the vices of idleness” at Sargent's Daughters in New York, transforms the gallery into an immersive, archaeological-like site. The show, on view through October 24, 2026, features handwoven, vibrantly colored, and textile-covered forms that extend across the floor, creating one of Zapata's most architecturally ambitious installations to date.

The architectural elements play an increasingly vital role in her work, Zapata told Observer during a walk-through of the exhibition. She constructed columns that serve as“functionless interventions,” prompting viewers to consider what is pre-existing versus newly introduced. Zapata intentionally incorporates materials typically hidden, such as humble plywood plinths, into the artwork itself. She reflected on“the possible evolution of these materials, what houses something and what can then be enclosed with textiles.”

The installation blends various stages of Zapata's artistic practice. While the architectural structures are newly created, the textiles on the floor are drawn from earlier pieces previously exhibited in Wisconsin and Brazil.“I like to think of the textiles and my installations as living things,” Zapata explained.“They come apart into pieces, and they never happen again in the same way. I've been thinking about the works in that way as well. It's the layering of new and old works to create something new. It's always this evolving thing.”

Rooted in Peruvian textile heritage and millennia of craft traditions, Zapata's work creates narrative spaces that encourage sensory and imaginative engagement. The resulting topography is intensely tactile, evoking the ruins of an ancient, hallucinatory civilization. Zapata views these works as“landscapes and environments,” approaching her practice with a conscious focus on world-building to create moments of surprise and encourage viewer interaction. She recently decided to prohibit touching the textiles, aiming to cultivate a deliberate tension from the unfulfilled tactile desire, instead prompting viewers to physically navigate the structures and shift their perspectives to discover hidden details.

Her process has also become more labor-intensive, with an increased emphasis on embroidery and handwork on surfaces initially associated with latch hook. She now sews directly into the material, treating it more like traditional cloth. Zapata describes this approach as“almost anti-futurist as I intentionally go slower,” recognizing a deliberate turn toward tactility and embodied knowledge amid growing disembodiment. The transformations of her works serve as a meditation on evolution, time, and the idea that time spent in making is never wasted.

During a 2024 residency at Fountainhead, Zapata encountered the work of archaeologist Daryl Wilkinson, who discusses geoglyphs as expressions of anarchy, particularly in relation to the Nazca Lines. Zapata draws a parallel between seemingly random stratifications in nature and the cumulative layering of gestures and labor over time that produces shared forms of knowledge. She noted that Wilkinson uses this parallel to describe an innate sensibility of making for its own sake, which she believes is“so productive for us as a civilization.” This impulse, she added, cannot be monetized, yet it has been a primary driver of evolution in human and natural history.

Beyond their functional utility, textiles have held symbolic and ritual meaning since early civilizations, representing a connection between humans and natural cycles, and accompanying communities throughout life. Zapata's practice is grounded in embodied knowledge passed down through generations, informed by an ancestral bond between humans and materials, and by the collective dimension of craft, often shared among communities of women. Her weaving, latch-hooking, and embroidery embody the temporality of their creation, along with generations of technical knowledge, years of learning, and hours of labor. She prefers vintage looms, including American-style looms, and acquired one from her alma mater, the University of North Texas, at auction. This choice reflects a quietly resistant stance that seeks to preserve tradition within her contemporary practice. Zapata asserts that if craft has always been radical, it feels especially so now.“It's something that we can put our mark on,” she said.

Zapata's use of colors, patterns, and motifs incorporates a playful, sensual contemporary flair, suspending her installations in time and space. The intertwined geometries in her handweavings evoke abstracted forms found in pre-Columbian textiles, while also sharing affinities with Middle Eastern textiles and the rhythms of South Asian patterns. Raised as an evangelical Christian in Texas and now living in Brooklyn as a queer artist, Zapata embraces hybridity, with her kaleidoscopic installations reflecting the experience of existing across different contexts and discovering adaptability. While her work remains partly biographical, she is increasingly exploring fantasy and more universal themes. These works can be interpreted as metaphors revealing the beauty that emerges from complex coexistence or contrasting traditions, and how new harmony can be found when woven together with sensitivity and shared creativity. By connecting heritage and contemporary expression across motifs, languages, and cultures, her installations become monuments to diversity and inclusivity. The flexibility of textiles, their ability to assume new forms and adapt to different constructions and contexts, serves as a fitting metaphor for human adaptability. Zapata embraces mistakes, recognizing that the unpredictability of the human hand reveals new possibilities and unexpected beauty.

We previously reported:

Two new books by Jason Edwards and Sharbreon Plummer, both published in 2026, explore the cultural and political dimensions of textile and fiber art.

Source: Observer Arts

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