Interventions: Weaving Joy, Woven Resistance

Katrina Sánchez weaves her Panamanian heritage into all aspects of her life and work. Sánchez grew up suspended between two cultures: Panama in the home and the southern United States when she stepped outside. Her mother also raised Sánchez with the tradition of handwork: making clothes, repurposing material into a lunch bag, embroidering store-bought linens to personalize them. The ubiquity of craft was a foundation brought from Panama—family members lovingly nicknamed Sánchez’s great-grandmother “the spider” because of her constant crocheting; her handwork covered the surfaces of her house. Sánchez’s annual visits to Panama established those traditions in her life, just as the objects carried back to her North Carolina home served as a daily reminder.

Shortly after graduating from University of North Carolina Charlotte with a BFA in Fiber, Sánchez experimented with weaving during a residency at Goodyear Arts, a practice she pushes beyond fiber in this Mint installation. With vibrant colors that reference Panama’s lush landscape, and materials—yarn, ribbons, beads, fish scales, and corn—that allude to the brilliant Mola blouses, dresses, and costumes of her ancestors, Sánchez constructs webs that map her daily life, overlapping her present memories, traditions, and loved ones both close and distant. She explains: “What I love about fiber is that passing down of history, a manual kind of history being passed on. And that connection that we have through family. That’s why I love fiber, really. It’s that human touch to it. It’s like comfort.”