Bio: Sarah Zapata employs weaving, tufting, and traditional craft techniques to create loud, architecturally responsive installations that traverse themes of gender, colonialism, and fantasy. Zapata’s site-specific works reflect her intersecting identities as a queer woman of Peruvian heritage raised in Evangelical Texas and now based in New York. She has held solo exhibitions at the ASU Art Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Museo MATE, amongst others. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Museo de Arte de Lima, the Museum of Arts and Design, and the Bass Museum of Art.
Title of work: In Escape From the Vices of Idleness
Where to see it: Sargent’s Daughters (located at 370 Broadway in New York) until October 24, 2026.
Three words to describe this work: Architecture, Fantasy, and Labor.
What was on your mind at the time: It can be hard to not perseverate on the impending devolution of technology, but handwork feels like a direct, oppositional act. I think of textiles as collage: different techniques using the same material yield a multitude of surfaces. Embroidery is a new technique for me; I love its clarity and simplicity and now things take even longer.
