Asmaa Amadou

Cloth Speaks 

Across histories and landscapes, the ground has always held memory. For me, textiles become ground: both surface and language, both material and archive. Textiles carry histories of labor, trade, survival, and transformation across generations, a system of communication that remembers and binds communities together, positioning cloth not as heritage alone, but as a living technology for future worldbuilding. Drawing from anthropology and material history, I investigate migration and cultural memory through fiber-based forms that expand from surface into structure and environment, positioning textile as architecture and embodied space. I work through weaving, dyeing, silkscreen, embroidery, and casting as modes of communicating through matter, and through deep investigation of West African textiles, pre- and colonial archival records and the foundational significance of ground. I construct large-scale installations where these histories are held and made tangible.
 

Under the Vegetable Market Tent
Cotton and rayon yarn, Jacquard-woven, glass, steel, glass beads
36” × 104” x 6”

Ground ~ Buried in the chaos, she revealed smiling, even as she cried for her beloved
2026
Linen, cotton, silk, wool, Jacquard selvage, glass beads and palm leaves; natural & plant dyed yarns; embroidery, woven on floor loom
180” x 40” x 10"
 

Umbilical Cord
2026
Naturally dyed fibers and clay, Jute, Palm leaves, copper wire 
54" x 96" x 15" 
 

Sub-Saharan Serpent
2025
Floor loom woven fiber sculpture; polyester, cotton, jute, and ixtle yarn; found metal agogo bells
Cotton, polyester, jute, and ixtle yarn, woven on a floor loom; found agogo bells
110” × 8” × 5” 
 

At the Intersection, You Will Take a Seat and Drink from Your Mother’s River, Flowing Both Ways
2026 
Cotton and Rayon, Jacquard-woven, Glass casted with Mica
108” × 50” x 6"