How do we stitch together the story of a region? How do we remember family and home through keepsakes and traditions passed down? How do we map everyday practices within a larger genealogy of collective struggle and resistance?

Oakland-based poet and scholar Wendy M. Thompson asks these questions while centering the cultural labor of Black women, whose work and art are core to Black family identity, tradition, political organizing, and belonging in the Black West. Engaging the quilts on display as part of Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California, Thompson and artist Trina Michelle Robinson connect the threads and present an interactive discussion around the significance of textiles, fiber, words, and retrospection as forms of self-creation, connection, and resistance.

Audience participants are welcome to bring a personal story, photograph, cutout, small memento, or piece of art to share as part of this collaborative experience. This event will include a reading from Thompson's debut poetry collection, Black California Gold. Presented in conjunction with Routed West.