J O A N N A G A R M O N
2025, translation of personal text into painterly abstraction, followed by the interactive reconfiguration of the resulting painting into a patchwork quilt, 2m x 2m. The last step was a collaboration with members of my chosen family: Francesca Brecha, Frank Buchta, Doug Chang, Karina Donis, Andreea Dragos, Avery Edelman, Jake Wiseman Lovett, Nadja Wieler, and Mirthe van Popering.
Reconfiguring Patterns: A Patchwork Intervention traces a personal process of translation and transformation across three stages: an unsent letter, an abstract painting, and finally, a collaborative quilt. I developed this method to process aspects of my family history that continue to shape my present, with each step offering a different mode of engaging with embodied patterns shaped by intergenerational trauma. The process begins with free writing as a form of cognitive processing and emotional release; the writing is then abstracted through gesture and material onto canvas. The act of painting becomes a physical dialogue — a way of connecting to the body through texture, rhythm, and movement. In the final stage, the painting is collectively taken apart and reassembled into a patchwork quilt. Quilting carries a long lineage; as a craft passed down through generations, it offers a positive counterpoint to inherited trauma — framing legacy not only as burden, but as something that can be touched, held, and reshaped.
The final stage becomes a site of shared negotiation — where rupture, discomfort, and care unfold in relation. Transformation begins to take root not in resolution, but in the shared act of holding, tearing, and reassembling. The materials carry both the residue of what was and the promise of what might still emerge.
