Negotiated Skin

Negotiated Skin is an installation-based textile and biomaterial project by New York-based artist Freda Xinyue Xia. The project brings together translucent protein-based biomaterial membranes, hand-reeled silk, wool, natural fibers, wearable structures, and suspended sculptural forms. Moving between skin, garment, and environment, the installation explores the body as a changing boundary shaped by vulnerability, protection, repair, and transformation.

The work begins with the idea that resilience is not a single strong surface, but a layered condition. Through repeated material processes, including layering, drying, stretching, stitching, reinforcement, and repair, the biomaterial membranes become records of pressure, softness, failure, and adaptation. Their translucent surfaces hold contour-like fiber lines, organic traces, and skin-like textures that suggest both fragility and strength.

Presented as an immersive installation, Negotiated Skin invites viewers to encounter textile as a living system. The work asks how materials can remember touch, how bodies carry repair, and how layered forms of care can become structures of resilience. In relation to the 2026 theme Layers of Resilience, the project offers a quiet but powerful reflection on transformation and collective care.

Please use the entrance at 1981 SW Broadway. Press the doorbell, and someone will buzz you in during business hours. The exhibitions are located on the third floor.