This quilt is a family census.
Artist Faith Ringgold transformed her Harlem rooftop into a sovereign studio of freedom. She learned the tradition of quilt-making from her mother, the designer Madame Willi Posey.
Ringgold wrote her autobiography directly onto fabric because traditional publishers told her, “That’s not your story.” This matrilineal transmission of voice, later theorized by her daughter Michele Wallace, translates material labor into a permanent historical record of Black life.