Rosy Petri named WMQFA Digital Humanities Fellow
Cedarburg, Wis. The Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts (WMQFA) is pleased to announce Rosy Petri as its inaugural Digital Humanities Fellow. During her yearlong fellowship, Petri will craft a series of podcast interviews with fiber artists and textile experts. These interviews will be available on WMQFA's website and social media platforms and archived on an interactive Listening Station embedded in the museum's new Textile Library. The browsable library will include a selection of books curated by each of the interviewed artists.
This project emerged from discussions with Petri about how she would like to engage with the museum, drawing on her expertise as a textile artist and storyteller. Through dialogue with Petri, we realized meeting artists and audiences in ways that feel welcome is essential. A digital humanities fellowship, free and open space at the museum, and published resources on WMQFA's website are ways we are working to increase accessibility and encourage participation among people who have been traditionally excluded. The project is a continuous effort to deepen our audience's understanding of contemporary textile practices through diverse voices and multiple access points.
"WMQFA is thrilled to collaborate with Petri on producing the free podcast," says Executive Director Melissa Wraalstad, "and to provide an immersive digital and in-person audio experience for museum visitors." "We can't wait for the Podcast to spark excitement about the richness of the textile community within the State and beyond," adds Senior Curator Emily Schlemowitz.
The Listening Station and Textile Library will be free and open during museum hours outside the museum's ticketed space. WMQFA's website will serve as a virtual shelf for archived podcasts and a digital bibliography of the participants' selections. The museum also plans to collaborate with the Cedarburg Public Library and the library will offer books available for checkout at the library pertaining to the artist's selections. WMQFA will offer additional programming in partnership with CPL.
Support for this project is provided by grants from Cedarburg's Tourism, Promotion, and Development (TP&D) Committee and the Greater Cedarburg Foundation.
About the Artist
Multidisciplinary artist Rosy Petri will serve as Digital Humanities Fellow at WMQFA. Petri received a Mary L. Nohl Individual Artist Fellowship in 2020. During that time, she interviewed twenty-five African American women who were actively engaged in, advocating for, and educating Milwaukee communities about their experiences during the 2020 George Floyd protests, now archived on the Haggerty Museum of Art's Google Arts & Culture website. In 2022, Petri was commissioned to illustrate the book It's a Good Day to Change the World (Countryman Press, 2023), a collection of stories from the podcast Inflection Point. https://www.thisisparadisehome.com