Disrupting Craft presents the work of Tanya Aguiñiga, Sharif Bey, Dustin Farnsworth, and Stephanie Styjuco, four artists who take innovative approaches to their selected mediums. They share a fascination with themes of identity, and the practise of their art as a means of engaging socially with communities in collective activity. The featured artists work in a remarkable variety of media including earthenware pottery, textiles and weaving, sculptural materials and woven plastic fabrics, and wood, metal and mixed media. Their visual sensibilities range from traditional African beaded culture, to digital media, the products of modern-day capitalist economies in the developing world, to post-industrial rust-belt of the American Midwest. Each is actively engaged in an artistic dialogue within their local and wider community, presenting mementos of bygone cultural eras and making sense of it for the present moment. Disrupting Craft is the second publication, and exhibition, devoted to the work of contemporary American craft practitioners and artists since the Renwick Gallery re-opened in fall 2015, following a major restoration and renovation.
