Concrete Tapestry

Lavender Tessmer, Nathaniel Elberfeld, Alex Waller, and Sam Bell-Hart

Project Type: Temporary Installation | July - August 2018

Bruno David Gallery | St. Louis, MO

Supported by the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis

Concrete Tapestry subverts the perceptual and literal heaviness of concrete construction through a series of delicate linear networks fabricated by experimental methods. The project investigates the potential of textile craft to generate new configurations of reinforced concrete, translating an existing small-scale technique into larger-scale fabrication strategy.

Each “tapestry” is reinforced with a hand-braided carbon fiber armature that leverages techniques from traditional lace-making — those that usually produce pictorial motifs — into purposeful forms that adopt a material and structural function.

The project builds on previous research employing a hybridized computational and analogue workflow for the design and fabrication of each underlying armature.