Weaving Dreams, Quilting Community

January 29, 2026 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Digital Humnaities Center

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Add to Calendar 2026-01-29 18:00:00 2026-01-29 20:00:00 Weaving Dreams, Quilting Community Event Description Weaving Dreams artist Kim F. Hall will be in conversation with innovative Black textile artists who have long been part of multi-generational networks of urban quilters. Quilters Christa Gilliam, Juandamarie Gikandi, and Jacqueline Johnson will join Hall to explore how their creative journeys in textile arts overlap with their research, writing and thinking about quilt-making as a modality of cultural inheritance. How do ritual, community resilience, and memory work become part of the act of making?. Audience members will be invited into an interactive conversation and hands-on activity celebrating quilting and textile arts. All are welcome, no sewing or quilting experience required. This event will be held at the Barnard Digital Humanities Center, Milstein103. Open to the public, with RSVP by January 27. Moderator: Miriam Neptune, Director of Milstein Exhibitions Co-host: A.L. McMichael, Senior Associate Director of the Digital Humanities Center Speakers: Dr. Christa C. Gilliam is an Associate Professor of Social Work at Morgan State University, and an accomplished researcher in the areas of social work education, community leadership, and environmental justice. She discovered a passion for quilting and fiber arts after earning her PhD when she began taking classes for self-care. Quilting has become her passion and when she is not teaching undergraduate social work courses she can be found chronicling her textile journey, @sewcialwork. Juandamarie Gikandi is a textile artist and self-taught quilter, who comes from a long line of Arkansan women who were known for their talents with needle and thread. Taking her cue from the experiences of groups from Africa and the African Diaspora, Juandamarie uses a myriad of fabrics to create works that interpret traditional forms of quilting through new and original patterns. Gikandi graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and was a Social Studies educator for over two decades, as well as curriculum developer for the New Jersey Amistad Commission. She is the founding president of The Princeton Sankofa Stitchers Modern Quilt Guild (NJ), and a member of several other quilt guilds including Sisters in Stitches Joined by The Cloth (MA), Christian Compassion Quilters (Philadelphia, PA), and the Akoma Ntoso Modern Quilt Guild (IN). Dr. Kim F. Hall is the Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College. She is a pioneering figure in the study of race in English Renaissance Literature and teaches courses in Shakespeare Studies, Black Feminist Studies, Food Studies and Slavery Studies. Diverse Issues in Higher Education has named her one of “25 Women Making a Difference in Higher Education and Beyond” (2016). Her most recent book, The Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery and Pleasure in the Anglo-Caribbean was published with University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025. Her quilts have been displayed in Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina and New York. She is a member of the Quilters of Color Network of New York and the African American Quilters of Baltimore. Jacqueline Johnson is a multi-disciplined artist creating poetry, fiction writing and fiber arts. She is the author of A Woman’s Season, on Main Street Rag Press, and A Gathering of Mother Tongues, published by White Pine Press, and is the winner of the Third Annual White Pine Press Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, Dear Yusef, Essays, Letters, and Poems for and About One Mr. Komunyakaa,- Baby Suggs and A Purple Butterfly, and Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, Routledge 2020. She is a Cave Canem fellow and Black Earth Institute Senior Fellow. Works in progress include Golden Lady, a poetry manuscript, The Privilege of Memory, a novel, and How to Stop a Hurricane, a collection of short stories. She is a graduate of New York University and the City University of New York. A native of Philadelphia, PA, she resides in Brooklyn, New York. She is a long time member of the Quilters of Color Network of New York and Empire Quilters. Digital Humnaities Center Barnard College barnard-admin@digitalpulp.com America/New_York public
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Close Up of Kim F. Hall's hands stitching

Event Description

Weaving Dreams artist Kim F. Hall will be in conversation with innovative Black textile artists who have long been part of multi-generational networks of urban quilters. Quilters Christa Gilliam, Juandamarie Gikandi, and Jacqueline Johnson will join Hall to explore how their creative journeys in textile arts overlap with their research, writing and thinking about quilt-making as a modality of cultural inheritance. How do ritual, community resilience, and memory work become part of the act of making?. Audience members will be invited into an interactive conversation and hands-on activity celebrating quilting and textile arts. All are welcome, no sewing or quilting experience required.

This event will be held at the Barnard Digital Humanities Center, Milstein103. Open to the public, with RSVP by January 27.

Moderator: Miriam Neptune, Director of Milstein Exhibitions

Co-host: A.L. McMichael, Senior Associate Director of the Digital Humanities Center

Speakers:

Dr Christa Gilliam

Dr. Christa C. Gilliam is an Associate Professor of Social Work at Morgan State University, and an accomplished researcher in the areas of social work education, community leadership, and environmental justice. She discovered a passion for quilting and fiber arts after earning her PhD when she began taking classes for self-care. Quilting has become her passion and when she is not teaching undergraduate social work courses she can be found chronicling her textile journey, @sewcialwork.

Juandamarie Gikandi is a textile artist and self-taught quilter, who comes from a long line of Arkansan women who were known for their talents with needle and thread. Taking her cue from the experiences of groups from Africa and the African Diaspora, Juandamarie uses a myriad of fabrics to create works that interpret traditional forms of quilting through new and original patterns. Gikandi graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and was a Social Studies educator for over two decades, as well as curriculum developer for the New Jersey Amistad Commission. She is the founding president of The Princeton Sankofa Stitchers Modern Quilt Guild (NJ), and a member of several other quilt guilds including Sisters in Stitches Joined by The Cloth (MA), Christian Compassion Quilters (Philadelphia, PA), and the Akoma Ntoso Modern Quilt Guild (IN).

Kim F. Hall Headshot

Dr. Kim F. Hall is the Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College. She is a pioneering figure in the study of race in English Renaissance Literature and teaches courses in Shakespeare Studies, Black Feminist Studies, Food Studies and Slavery Studies. Diverse Issues in Higher Education has named her one of “25 Women Making a Difference in Higher Education and Beyond” (2016). Her most recent book, The Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery and Pleasure in the Anglo-Caribbean was published with University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025. Her quilts have been displayed in Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina and New York. She is a member of the Quilters of Color Network of New York and the African American Quilters of Baltimore.

Jacqueline Johnson headshot

Jacqueline Johnson is a multi-disciplined artist creating poetry, fiction writing and fiber arts. She is the author of A Woman’s Season, on Main Street Rag Press, and A Gathering of Mother Tongues, published by White Pine Press, and is the winner of the Third Annual White Pine Press Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, Dear Yusef, Essays, Letters, and Poems for and About One Mr. Komunyakaa,- Baby Suggs and A Purple Butterfly, and Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, Routledge 2020. She is a Cave Canem fellow and Black Earth Institute Senior Fellow. Works in progress include Golden Lady, a poetry manuscript, The Privilege of Memory, a novel, and How to Stop a Hurricane, a collection of short stories. She is a graduate of New York University and the City University of New York. A native of Philadelphia, PA, she resides in Brooklyn, New York. She is a long time member of the Quilters of Color Network of New York and Empire Quilters.