This Bridge Called Our Backs
In This Bridge Called Our Backs Artist Malaika Temba joins the threads of physical and emotional labor, crafting a series of textiles that speak to the essence of human resilience and creativity. Inspired by the colorful trucks and buses that she photographed hissing and puffing through the landscapes of Tanzania, Temba’s fiber works capture dualities of strength and delicacy, utility and beauty ubiquitous around the globe.
Created through a fusion of hand and jacquard weaving, digital embroidery, felting, sewing, and painting, Temba’s practice embodies the interplay of mass production and the individual human hand. Wielding materiality, she juxtaposes vibrant depictions of laden trucks with the softness of domestic textiles. Her focus on the car door zeroes in on a particular perspective seen through its window; a view of the outside world from the vantage point of someone in transit, going to work. The smooth organic shape is simultaneously a soft, curvy, asymmetrical form and a practical metal car part. (see Ntozake Shange: “no longer symmetrical/or impervious to pain”)
With these works, Temba explores the invisible emotional labor carried predominantly by women. Certain embroidered phrases “I needed you to be honest” and “truth telling and emotional exposure” challenge gender roles and further honor the often overlooked efforts of those who sustain their communities, caregiving and carrying the unseen burdens of everyday life.
This Bridge Called Our Backs celebrates hands that labor and the stories they tell. This exhibition is a poetic tribute to the seemingly invisible and the undervalued; it’s a call to recognize the intricate connectedness and interdependence of the human experience.
About Malaika Temba
Malaika Temba (b. 1996, Washington, D.C.) is a Textile Artist currently based in New York. She has been moving her entire life: to Saudi Arabia, Uganda, South Africa, Morocco, then Maryland. Her lens and creative process are global, nourished by these experiences, and also influenced by art at the intersection of visuals and sound. In addition to her studio practice, Temba has worked as Assistant Art Director and Print Designer at Pyer Moss, a Design Consultant at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Textiles Department at the Rhode Island School of Design. Temba is originally from D.C. and Tanzania, and graduated with a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2018.
Temba has worked for contemporary artists including Jim Drain, Kenya (Robinson), and Anthony McCall. She has shown her work at Design Miami during Miami Art Week, the 2019 MET Gala, and on the runway at New York Fashion Week. Select exhibitions include Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami (solo), Allouche Gallery in New York (group), The Yard in New York (group) and Lilia Ben Salah Gallery in Paris, France (solo). Her work is part of various public and private collections worldwide, including the collections of Jorge M. Pérez and Beth Rudin DeWoody. She is the 2021 recipient of the YoungArts Jorge M. Pérez Award.