anna rapson

numb.

Although access to information has always been shaped by portals into other lived realities—through photo journalism, print legacy media, news broadcasts both on radio and television—social media has posited a novel phenomenological architecture where borders between embodied reality and perception of lived experience are simultaneously blurred and reinforced. Taking form as a multimedia installation, numb. employs the inherent connectivity of fiber arts, specifically weaving with its legacy as the first tool to communicate code, to act as a physical and metaphorical link between these two realities. The piece is dual in nature, consisting of an accordion book, displayed on a pedestal that morphs into a woven e-textile that hangs in front, communicating and connecting to one another through the cables from the weave. Hand woven from audio visual cables sourced from a previous news station in Providence, the textile is both an embodiment and a material study, acting as a womb for the media, represented by my phone planted into the piece. The book forms an extension of the textile, visualizing moments of personal memory in the form of news clippings, personal writings, photographs, and drawings. In an effort to simultaneously juxtapose and connect these two seemingly disparate worlds—the tactile and the digital, the witnessed and the embodied—numb. provokes the audience in all of us, as spectators and also as perpetrators, to not look away, while acting as an outlet for the culmination of my own resistance and desperate hope to keep feeling.

disembodied.
2025
Gif from video, original length 07:49
1920 x 1080 px

One of the first conceptual pieces created for my thesis, disembodied showcases a moment of vulnerability. For the past two years, crochet has acted as an outlet to dissociate from the constant hum from the twenty four hour news cycle. Simultaneously a method of disconnection from social media and connection with myself, crochet allowed me to process. In this piece, my social media feed is projected onto my body, exposed, giving the media a physical body to inhabit. 

disembodied. still.
2025
Image capture from original disembodied video
1920 x 1080 px

Language shapes our understanding of identity, place, and self. As a graphic designer, I question the existing structures of language, while using it as a material to build new formations. Nudging against certainties, I challenge how the stories we are told can dispossess us, even flatten us.

copper cells
2026
Crocheted stripped gauge 8 copper wire
4 x 6”

Material exploration in the beginning of thesis development.

neutral neutrality.
2026
Museum board, gauge 12 aluminum wire, shoe lace, cables, iphone
11 x 16 x 8”

Concept model exploring initial ideas for the thesis. Tension and balance hold together rigid and fragile elements culminating in an architectural scene that provokes feelings of suspense and anxiety.

worn.
2026
Vinyl gloves, gauge 8 aluminum wire crocheted piece 
1.75 x 3”

Throughout creating the textile for this thesis, gloves acted as a barrier and mediator between myself and the cables. Each set of gloves bears traces of the process in weaving the final piece: from dirt on the wires, rips in the fingers, and sweat trapped in between the vinyl, hundreds of gloves embody the time spent making the weave and what the piece transferred to me as well.

numb.
2026
SDI, HDMI and miscellaneous cables sourced from defunct Providence news station
4 x 9’

Coming from my initial gravity towards crochet as a means to self soothe and regulate, this piece represents the overstimulation faced within the online world while embodying the practice of weaving as a means to communicate, process, and connect. The audio and visual cables making up the weave were collected from an old TV news station in Providence, furthering its relationality to context, site, and source.

numb. 
2026
Book board, distressed cotton book cloth, stripped gauge 8 copper wire, collage
9 x 9 x 20” (expanded)

As a companion piece to the e-textile, this ten page accordion book personifies the opposite end of the digital to tactile spectrum that exists within media. Composed of poetry, film photography, snippets of news stories, remnants of wire coatings, and personal journal writings, the book is an outlet for and visualization of my own experience grappling with digital and lived reality over the past two years.