Stack for Martha’s Sisters

Stack for Martha’s Sisters is a commissioned work for Fort Worth Contemporary Arts TCU, Fort Worth, Texas consisting of 3 projection installations and a broadside takeaway. The show ran from September 10-October 30, 2021. Stack for Martha’s Sisters is a queer feminist imagining of alternative spaces of being, family and creation. The video installations are intended as portals of fragmented imagination — accessible through contemplation of past women’s communities, and channeling a horizontal possibility of influence, history and making. For the artists, Dani and Sheilah ReStack, the Sanctified Sisters of Belton, Texas were a major inspiration in making the work. The Sanctified Sisters was founded by Martha McWhirter in the late 1860s, after she had a dream in the kitchen of separating from her husband and making community with women similarly interested in leaving their husbands, and pursuing an alternative lifestyle. The history of the Sanctified Sisters infuses the installation at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts as the artists used this historical legend, which exists without physical trace except for a plaque in the town of Belton, as catalyst.

The artists returned to their home state of Ohio after a site visit in June, 2021, and visited the Susan B Anthony Womyns Land in Athens, Ohio. The Susan B. Anthony Land was founded in the 1990’s and continues to serve an intentional queer population interested in living or camping rurally. The filming for Stack for Martha’s Sisters occurred in the outdoor kitchen, and Star cabin, at the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Land (Subamuh) in summer of 2021. The artists, Dani + Sheilah, and their children are part of the creation and interaction with the space of stacking, feral domestic possibility and alternative queer family collaboration. 

Stack for Martha’s Sisters was supported by a grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

Alongside Stack for Martha’s Sisters the artists also present Shameless Light at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts. This is an ongoing project where invited queer identified participants submit love letters that are then read aloud under two red, neon funnels. At TCU, the artists are hosting an outdoor screening of Fort Worth queer identified womxn reading love letters on October 20, 2021.

Install images courtesy TCU Gallery Director Lynné Bowman Cravens and Brad Flowers.