Generations

2023
500 NFTs + selection of quilts
ARSNL Project Page

Publications:
- “Coded art: CCAM gallery pairs ‘physical and digital’ in debut showcase”, Yale News, May 2024
- The Quilters of Gee’s Bend Head to the Blockchain, Collaborating With a Young Generative Artist on a Series of NFTs”, Artnet, May 2023
- From Frank Stella to the quilters of Gee's Bend: how Artists Rights Society is working in the world of NFTs”, The Art Newspaper, May 2023
- Anna Lucia and the Quilters of Gee’s Bend<”, Right Click Save, May 2023

Exhibitions:
- 2024 Dimensions of Digitization, CCAM Yale, New Haven, USA
- 2023 GENERATIONS: Anna Lucia & The Quilters of Gee’s Bend, Subjective, New York City, USA

Generations is a collaboration with the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, which resulted in a collection of 500 digital quilts and a selection of quilts made from their digital counterparts.

The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers are a group of African-American women who quilted together in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. They are known for their unique quilting style, which is characterized by their use of bold colors and geometric patterns. Lacking in other resources, the quilters often used old jeans, cornmeal sacks, and other scrap fabrics, adding a sense of chance and improvisation to the quilts.

Four quilters shared their process with me, Loretta Pettway Bennett, Essie Bendolph Pettway, and Mary Margaret Pettway (daughter of Lucy T. Pettway). In turn I created an algorithm to generate digital quilts that share key elements with the source, yet are unique and surprising in their own right. The quilters curated the final 500 digital quilts for the collection.

Installation view Subjective, NYC

Generations #16

Installation view Subjective, NYC

Installation view Subjective, NYC

Generations #0

Selection of outputs Generations algorithm