Handarbeit: Instruments of Repair

Handarbeit: Instruments of Repair is a selection of sculptural textile works from Johnson's ongoing thesis project exploring mending, health, and consumption through Handarbeit (handwork). Using discarded clothing and fabric scraps, she reconstructs familiar medical objects, including scissors, a hand sanitizer bottle, a stethoscope, a scalpel, and a bandaid, as soft, non-functional forms.

Many of these objects are scaled to her own body or enlarged beyond their everyday proportions, shifting their presence from practical tools to sculptural objects. Altering their size encourages viewers to reconsider their familiarity and the emotional weight they carry within clinical spaces. Drawing from her own experiences with surgery and hospitalization, the work aims to highlight health, labor, and care while incorporating sustainability practices.

These sculptures position mending as both a physical and symbolic act. By giving discarded textiles new purpose, the work challenges cycles of consumption while emphasizing repair as an ongoing process. The exhibition invites viewers to consider healing as a continuous practice shaped by memory, maintenance, and the labor of care.