Saturday Sessions

Victoria Udondian Artist Talk and Visible Mending Workshop with Stitch Buffalo

1–2 PM Artist Talk: Cloth, Labor, and the Stories We Carry
2–4 PM Visible Mending Workshop with Stitch Buffalo

Please join the Medina Triennial for a conversation with Buffalo-based artist Victoria Udondian, followed by a hands-on Visible Mending Workshop in collaboration with Stitch Buffalo.

Udondian works with second-hand clothing and fabric as both material and archive, tracing the lives, histories, and economies embedded in everyday garments as they travel across borders and between cultures. She will discuss her process of working with immigrant and refugee communities to create large-scale woven sculptures and installations, and reflect on how the industrial textile history of Western New York resonates with her ongoing inquiry into collective labor, women's work, and the hidden human cost of global trade.

Following the talk, Stitch Buffalo—a textile art center committed to empowering refugee and immigrant women through handcraft, community education, and the reuse of textile materials—will lead a Visible Mending Workshop introducing two practical repair techniques: patching denim with contrasting fabric and decorative stitching, and repairing holes in knitwear using basic darning. Participants will leave with hands-on samples and the skills to tackle their own mending at home. Visible mending kits will be provided free of charge to registrants and will also be available for purchase following the workshop. Guests are welcome to bring their own materials, as well.

Free and open to the public.
Space is limited to 20 participants for the workshop.
Pre-registration recommended at [email protected], Facebook/Instagram DM, or at 585-590-9947.

Victoria Udondian’s work is driven by her interest in textiles and the potential for clothing to shape identity, informed by the histories and tacit meanings embedded in everyday materials. She creates work that questions notions of cultural identity and post-colonial positions in relation to her experiences growing up in Nigeria. In 2020, Udondian was named a Guggenheim Fellow. Her work has been shown internationally, including at the Inaugural Nigerian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, the Fisher Landau Center for Art in New York, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the National Museum in Lagos, and the Whitworth in Manchester. Udondian received an MFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Columbia University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She earned a BA in Painting from the University of Uyo, Nigeria. She is currently a Visiting Associate Professor of Art at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.