Ann Hamilton habitus

Artist Ann Hamilton’s celebrated, multi-venue installation is brought to the page in this striking volume that explores another facet of her work in textile and text. "Held by cloth’s hand, we are swaddled at birth, covered in sleep, and wound in death," muses artist Ann Hamilton. Rather than documenting the experience of her enormous immersive 2016–17 installation in Philadelphia, Hamilton offers here a document—one that is as much a part of the project as its three dimensional counterparts. Lush photography, archival imagery, and lucid prose come together to help readers understand Hamilton’s ideas about the fabric of and in our lives. Like a thread through cloth, these individual images and words weave together strands of history, technology, poetry, and motion into one extraordinary and compelling experience.

Patricia C. Phillips is Chief Academic Officer and Academic Dean at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is a prolific author and curator.