An overview of Brackens’ magical realist textiles that interfuse mythology with American history and Black identity

This monograph offers an intimate and expansive introduction to the work of American textile artist Diedrick Brackens (born 1989). His practice is shaped through sustained contemplation of American history, autobiography and myth, conjuring imagined spaces where time oscillates between past and future. Drawing from a wide range of textile traditions―West African weaving, quilting from the American South and European tapestry-making―alongside literature and poetry, his figurative and abstract works build a collaged visual language that is both deeply personal and open-ended. Brackens depicts nuanced visions of Black life and identity, while also alluding to the complicated histories of labor and migration through his use of materials: cotton, tea and bleach, to name a few. Through three essays, a poem and an in-depth conversation with the artist, the book foregrounds Brackens’ meticulous process―hand-dyed cotton, deliberate weaving―and considers how his works invite sustained looking, offering textiles as sites of care, ritual and transformation.