TELEPORTAL: “Homeward”
TAC Gallery
Tulsa
Through Sept. 28
Probably the craziest sound bite to come out of the recent presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was Trump’s unsubstantiated rant about immigrants eating pets — a laughable but harmful conspiracy theory that speaks to dark, xenophobic lies about those desperate to enter our country who are seeking a new home and a better life.
Tulsa is no stranger to refugee resettlement, with several federally supported agencies in the city welcoming individuals and families fleeing persecution, instability and violence. The most recent arrivals have come from Venezuela, Guatemala, and Syria with many more from Myanmar, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Congo all looking to make Tulsa home.
In fractured times like this, how can we think more generously and fluidly about what “home” is? A new exhibit in the Tulsa Arts District might help. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many were stuck at home and galleries were pivoting to online exhibitions, a group of international artists came together to form a collective called Teleportal. Born in 2021 out of a residency program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the group began making work through collective prompts like “Ephemeral Existence,” “Movement,” and most recently, “Homeward.” Homeward, an exhibition that opened during the September First Friday at the Tulsa Artists’ Coalition, presents a collaborative quilt centered on the idea of home, created by 18 artists working within the collective.
Based in sites around the world, including Asia, South America, Europe and the United States, each artist made an individual square or piece, all of which were ultimately sewn together to form a large-scale quilt. The final piece hangs from the ceiling of TAC, centered within the space, taking up most of the gallery. Directly behind it is a map of the world with strings that connect each artist’s home country to their piece within the quilt. Hanging on the gallery walls are pieces by the participating artists that relate to their square within the larger work.
The intergenerational and global network of artists work with various mediums and touch on subjects surrounding memory, identity, and sociopolitical concerns. The exhibition is accompanied by Teleportal Zine, the first issue of which further explores the collaborative exhibition prompt and features works by the exhibited artists that relate to or are included in the Tulsa quilt. The collective writes, “At a time when it is easier to find things that divide us, Homeward accepts the differences and embraces similarities in this universal experience of home.”
The concept of home and its diverse meanings is supported by the range of materials used in the quilt. Artists within the collective employed collage, used mixed-media sculptural strategies, or looked to photography to communicate what home means to them. Positioned in the lower left side of the quilt is a digital photograph on fabric titled Te Amo Mamãe (2024), by Carol Chediak (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The photograph shows an interior scene of an apartment taken through an opened window of another apartment just outside. The piece is printed on translucent material, letting light through the fibers and further illuminating the domestic space. It’s an image one can imagine seeing many times a day while making coffee or traversing your house. It’s not a beautiful scene, but one that most of us have in our homes, a space that we gaze at every day and become familiar with over time, providing a sense of security in its mundane sameness.
Another square within the quilt, by Carol Updegrave (Lima, Peru), is a mixed media collage of acrylic paint, digital photographs on fabric and textile scraps that piece together a feeling of place and love by centering the image of a dress. Updegrave’s entry in the zine includes additional images of the same dress that ties her quilted piece together and further illustrates the sense of a mother’s love and judgment through a material object. Home and belonging are often tied to things we take with us that remind us of where and who we come from.
Further upending our expectations for what materials can make a quilt, Lu Mazen (Munich, Germany) contributed photographs of her family history as told through found objects. The stills show collections of objects like tea kettles, vases with dried flowers, coup glasses and tchotchkes that recall the things one might find in their parents’ or grandparents’ house: ever-present dust collectors that remind one of family, memory and belonging.
During the exhibit’s opening reception, Tulsa artist Michelle Kenny performed her work Homeostasis, a durational performance that presented her own beating heart. While she meditated in the space, surrounded by objects from her own home, viewers could hear and see her heartbeat in real time through Bluetooth headphones and a live video feed. Inviting strangers into one’s house can make one feel slightly exposed; even more vulnerable is inviting a stranger to listen to your heart, something only medical practitioners or family might have the chance to hear. Kenny’s performance touched on the heart as a temporal device, never permanent.
The construction of the quilt feels impermanent, too. It’s not something you could cozy up with. Its transitions feel delicate and vulnerable. There are large gaps left by pieces that aren’t perfect squares or form openings within an artist’s section. The collective couldn’t have planned this, as each artist approached the idea of home individually without envisioning the gestalt. The effect, however, feels appropriate to our present moment when the idea and the experience of home feels tenuous and unfixed for so many people. Home isn’t a house; it’s actually where the heart is.
Homeward by Teleportal is on view at Tulsa Artists’ Coalition through September 28. Its featured artists are Tamera Bedford, Marisa Bernotti, Carol Chediak, Joe Cimino, Sarah Dineen, Katherine Hair Eagle (Tulsa guest artist), Felipe Góes, Nina Gospodin, Destiny Jade Green (Tulsa guest artist), Michelle Kenny (Tulsa guest performance artist), James Horner, JP Morrison Lans, Linda Marcus, Lu Mazen, Zoë Elena Moldenhauer, Renée Rey, Dan Rocky (Tulsa guest artist), Janice Sztabnik, and Carol Updegrave.
