Artists
United States of America
Lou Cabeen
MUTUALISMS
07.02.24 28.02.24
Lou Cabeen is a Seattle artist who works with a range of media including maps, textiles, stitching and collage. She was part of MUTUALISMS, the 8th edition of our online program Together Apart.
Making artist books allows her to fully explore the power of tactile experience in communicating her ideas. She uses cloth, paper and stitching in order to emphasize the tactile nature of private experience, and to reveal the textures of subjective thought. Lou’s most recent work is inspired by environmental issues, from coal mining to watershed protection. She also explores the numinous and has created a series of works inspired by the legends of St. Clare of Assisi and the 20th century apparitions of Mother Mary.
ARTIST STATEMENT & TESTIMONY
In all of my work, I seek to build a literal body of knowledge—by intellectually researching the topic as well as paying close attention to my own physical reaction to it. Usually the work teaches me, and after a piece is completed I realize it has brought me home to myself—to something my body has known all along but my mind has not been able to articulate.
My experience in the Mutualisms online residency was powerful. The information offered was inspiring, the conversations generated were stimulating, and I continue to thrive creatively in the expanded world view offered by the gathering of international artists.
BIO
Lou Cabeen
1950 | Danville, Illinois
Lives and works in Seattle, USA
EDUCATION
1989 | MFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA
EXHIBITIONS
2022 | Field Notes. The Center for Urban Horticulture Seattle, USA
2021 | Essential Bainbridge Arts and Crafts. Bainbridge Island, USA
2021 | Science Stories. Collins Memorial Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, USA
2020 | Fiber 2020. Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island, USA
2019 | Botanizing Hope. The Center for Urban Horticulture Seattle, USA
Related Activities
Together Apart
# 8: Mutualisms | Results
Artists in Dialogue
07.02.24 28.02.24
In this new edition of Together Apart, we met again, this time under the title Mutualisms. During 4 weeks of intense exchange, 12 artists from different countries and cities collaborated and contributed to create this space of mutuality in which to freely explore their ideas.
In the words of Daniela Ruiz Moreno, program curator: “The 8th edition of Together Apart was, once more, a very gratifying surprise to us—
the coordinators and creators of the programme. It was very interesting to see how the individual interests of each artist were articulated with each other through collaboration across different disciplines, the generation of collective archives, and the invention of methodologies for coexistence. We were able to observe a gradual development, akin to an accumulation and metabolization of all the knowledge and information shared by the various team members and the invited artist, Rodrigo de Arteaga, as well as the invaluable knowledge shared by each participant. We explored alternative approaches to artistic practice, a different way of conceiving scientific knowledge, and acted in response to the urgent need for these two areas to collaborate more frequently. As one of the participants mentioned, the final session felt as watching -in a fast forward speed- a garden grow. Bringing back one of the philosophers who accompanied us during this program, I would like to quote again the words of Michael Marder regarding the writings of Hildegard von Bingen, a Benedictine abbess who in the 12th century was contemplating more holistic and spiritual approaches to ecology and the plant world. Hildegard proposes to look at the mystery of plantness, of greening greenness, of growth. I believe that the arts, in relation to many other forms of knowledge, serve as a vehicle to achieve an awareness of the interdependence inherent in all forms of life on this planet and a re-enchantment with the mystery that life forms entail. Each participant in this program allowed us to do just that, from observing the mystery of trees that make many fundamental cycles of our lives possible, to the landscapes that surround us and shape us, the different constructions and perceptions of time, to the intricate and not entirely straightforward relationship of our coexistence and co-creation with technology and nature.”
