Missing Data Quilt draws on the African Diasporic concept of “wake work,” a concept developed by Christina Sharpe referring to thinking and care Black people engage in with memory and archives in the wake, or afterlives, of slavery. In this screen-printed textile, Jackson attempts to affirm a family memory by weaving together a photograph transferred onto the patchwork fabric of a quilt, where missing information is filled in by the artist with their own data, or patches of fabric. The work hints at their family’s ambivalent generational relationship with the American landscape. Descended from generations of rice farmers in Louisiana, the land their family owned and worked on had become an important part of their history. After some time, they were unable to afford the land and were forced to sell. Jackson’s work acknowledges the complicated significance the land has held for their lineage, as well as the depth of their personal interactions with the land.
- Kailyn Harris
