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Artist Sarah Zapata's installation for the 8th Annual Atrium Project

Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

The here and now is a prison house … Some will say that all we have are the pleasures of this moment, but we must never settle for that minimal transport; we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.
José Esteban Muñoz
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity

For Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s eighth annual commissioned Atrium Project, New York-based artist Sarah Zapata (Peruvian American, born 1988) combines sculptural and textile techniques to create a vibrant and inviting site-specific installation. In her practice, she sources familiar materials—such as acrylic yarn and natural fibers—and traditional art forms including weaving, coiling, sewing, and latch hooking, to articulate the intersections of her plural identities: the daughter of a Peruvian immigrant; a first generation American born in Texas; and a queer woman raised in an Evangelical household.

In Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known, Zapata centers local lesbian and feminist histories from her research at the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. In part, this installation pays homage to Womontown, a group of primarily queer women who established a revolutionary community in the Longfellow (Dutch Hill) neighborhood of Kansas City in the late 1980s. Zapata’s use of abstracted tulip forms and shades of lavender draw inspiration from the Womontown banner while simultaneously evoking histories of queer resistance, as the color lavender came to be associated with gay and lesbian communities, and thus stigmatized, in the mid-twentieth century. Ladders—a recurring motif in Zapata’s work alluding to ideas of fantasy and transitional spaces—here make reference to the national lesbian magazine The Ladder (1956–1970), founded by the Daughters of Bilitis and later operated remotely by recognized writer and publisher Barbara Grier in Kansas City. 

Of special interest to the artist are methods of political protest and solidarity formed across cultures and countercultures, particularly those expressed through textiles, such as arpilleras, an artform created by Chilean women in resistance to the violent authoritarian dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a 54-ton tapestry displayed on the National Mall in 1985 in remembrance of the lives lost during the AIDS outbreak. Also of significance is Zapata’s inclusion of stripes, which were used in medieval Europe to identify individuals on the fringes of society, such as criminals and jesters. 

So the roots be known poetically underscores the resilience and labor of femme and queer voices by demonstrating the community-forming efforts of those seeking companionship, free speech, and safe harbor. Here, Zapata’s textile pieces are draped, suspended, and slumped along the wall, suggesting the many flags, banners, and quilts collaboratively constructed with the ambition of shaping better futures through solidarity and mutual care.

Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Krista Alba, assistant curator.

Meet artist Sarah Zapata at Kemper Museum.

Artist Talk & Reception Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known

Head to Kemper Museum for one last summer celebration and enjoy music, food, art, and fun! At the event, get a first look the 8th Annual Atrium Project, Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known, and a last look at Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence.

Kemper Museum Block Party 2023

Born in Texas and based in Brooklyn, Sarah Zapata is an artist who creates colorful, sensuous textile installations that engage issues of gender and labor, as well as cultural and personal identity. 

2011 B.F.A., Fibers, University of North Texas, Denton, TX

2022 Sarah Zapata: a resilience of things not seen, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI

2020 The Taxing of a Fruitful Procession, Museo MATE, Lima, Peru

2019 NADA HOUSE, Governor’s Island, NY

2018 MOTHA and Chris E. Vargas: Consciousness Raising, New Museum, New York, NY

2018 Anti Bodies, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY

2016 Siempre X, El Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY

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5 Latinx Artists Using Abstraction to Address Precolonial Histories

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Into: Sarah Zapata’s Hand-Woven Technicolor Dreamscapes

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Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known

Installation view, Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known, August 18, 2023–July 28, 2024, Atrium, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E.G. Schempf, 2023. 