Quilting Point
Quilting Point is a series of cotton x-stitcheries that depict infrared and backscatter images of undocumented immigrants crossing the US/Mexico border. Using a computer program, the digital files were translated into counted x-stitch maps, and then hand embroidered, each x-stitch representing a single pixel of the original image. The title Quilting Point is intended to allude to the way in which societies define or “quilt” national identity through a relation to otherness. The use of x-stich dislocates the image from its original creation through state surveillance mechanisms and resituates it in mid-20th century home handicraft which both alters the aesthetic experience of the image while drawing a connection between home and homeland, and the way in which our anxieties around the idea of “home” are used to justify the violent mechanisms produced to “secure” the territory considered as “homeland.”