Bio
Ahnika Wood (1996) is an interdisciplinary artist working in textile and text-based modalities. In the embodied knowledge of fiber arts traditions, such as weaving, stitching, and dyeing, they reflect on the nature of relationships, from the personal to the elemental. Ahni moves as a weaver, using opposing axes of thought to form interfaces for communication. They explore themes of coding, word, and body to demonstrate webs of connection and disintegration.
In 2024, they self-published We Fold Open the House, a variable edition artist's book. They have taught workshops at the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Multnomah Arts Center, Berlin Drawing Room, Wildcraft Studio School, Alder Commons, and Bridge Space Commons. They hold a BFA in Fibers from Savannah College of Art and Design and currently reside in Portland, Oregon.
Statement
I employ a broad definition of "textile" to expand a craftsperson’s ways of knowing into other mediums. Stitching, for example, becomes anything that is at once destructive and reparative. Folding, draping, and dyeing each have their own approach and imparted knowledge.
Weaving, and all its associated actions, especially dominates my practice and way of seeing the world. As a process and a structure, it allows the linearity of a thread to become the planar surface of cloth. Through the matrix of opposing tensions, a surface is formed—a medium, a boundary, an interface. I use opposing characteristics to weave/write; to express and to protect in the poetics of pattern.
Textiles are original mediums of story, coding, and identity-making. They clothe us, shelter us, and travel with us, and I intentionally speak in the intimacy associated with them.
Through this practice, I reflect on my relatedness to the world: to raw materials, to the earth, to other people, and to complex systems. I wonder, "What are we creating together?" and "How are parts of the whole affecting the overall nature of things?"
Contact
ahnikaw@gmail.com
︎ ahni.verse