Soft Friction
Craftwork, Lindsay Degen, Tinglan Huang, Sarah Khadraoui, Shradha Kochhar, Jacqueline Qiu
THE BLANC
15 East 40th Street, New York
May 15 - June 27, 2026
Soft Friction, installation view. Beige sculpture: Shradha Kochhar, rest/release, 2025. Kala cotton, bamboo. 34 x 34 x 37 inches. Hanging middle: Shradha Kochhar, 5:54am; october 19, 2020, 2025. Kala cotton. 46 x 36 inches. Hanging right: Shradha Kochhar, spell for stillness, 2025. Kala cotton. 20.5 x 19.5 inches. On the wall right: TInglan Huang, Fold (折叠), 2024. Double weave and tapestry with cotton and wool yarn. 21 x 18 inches.
THE BLANC is pleased to present Soft Friction, a group exhibition bringing together seven female artists whose work in textiles explores invisible labor, soft power, and the changing realm of material practice with new technologies.
Curated by Leo Yuan, the exhibition features artists Craftwork (Nicole Yi Messier and Victoria Manganiello), Lindsay Degen, Tinglan Huang, Sarah Khadraoui, Shradha Kochhar, and Jacqueline Qiu. Soft Friction’s textiles span installation, sculpture, and participatory media. Together, these works examine how the versatility of the medium speaks to its applications in technology, fashion, and the expanded field of fiber art.
Installation view. From right to left on the wall: TInglan Huang, Changing Room (试衣间), 2024. Double weave and tapestry with cotton and wool yarn. 18 x 28 inches. Tinglan Huang, Copperwort (铜钱草), 2023. Double weave with cotton and wool yarn. 28 x 28 inches. Tinglan Huang, Place, Non-Place (场域,非场域), 2022. Double weave with cotton and wool yarn. 27 x 60 inches.
The visual centerpiece is Craftwork’s large-scale installation Ancient Futures, a site-specific installation of 16 woven panels integrated with fiber optics and sensors. Using an AI-driven sentiment analysis script, the work processes audience stories into real-time light patterns. As the cloth evolves, AI translates the emotional weight of these narratives into shifting colors—mapping joy to red or frustration to blue—resulting in a reactive tapestry that finds as much meaning in its technical ambiguity as in its accuracy.
Installation view: Craftwork, Ancient Futures (Wave #1), 2024. Natural and synthetic fiber and dye. Size variable.
Craftwork will also present Slow Medium, a new series of woven works inspired by lichen's ancient, expansive growth, translating organic spread into dimensional cloth through variations in thread density. A knitting machine will be displayed in the gallery, alongside clips from The Domestic Machine, a documentary produced by Craftwork about the culture and community around knitting.
Craftwork, Slow Medium (#7), 2026. Natural and synthetic fiber and dye. 40 x 40 inches. Craftwork, Slow Medium (#10), 2026. Natural and synthetic fiber and dye. 40 x 40 inches. Craftwork, Slow Medium (#9), 2026. Natural and synthetic fiber and dye. 38 x 40 inches.
Returning to the intimate, manual origins of the knitted thread, Shradha Kochhar’s work anchors itself in material memory and indigenous lineage. Utilizing hand-spun khadi and organic kala cotton, her hand-knitted forms set against sheer, mesh backdrops works serve as a physical archive of South Asian narratives. By transforming traditional women’s work into monumental forms, Kochhar explores the intersections of invisible labor and intergenerational healing.
Shradha Kochhar, rest/release, 2025. Kala cotton, bamboo. 34 x 34 x 37 inches.
The Toronto-based artist Tinglan Huang takes a more painterly approach to the medium, utilizing tapestry and double-weaving to explore the "box" of domesticity. Her vibrant compositions use furniture as proxies for social dynamics, mapping interpersonal relationships onto interior scenes. By revealing the hidden stories and invisible boundaries woven into our daily trajectories, Huang illustrates how these soft architectures offer both protection and constraint.
Tinglan Huang, Place, Non-Place (场域,非场域), 2022. Double weave with cotton and wool yarn. 27 x 60 inches. Tinglan Huang, Changing Room (试衣间), 2024. Double weave and tapestry with cotton and wool yarn. 18 x 28 inches. Tinglan Huang, Fold (折叠), 2024. Double weave and tapestry with cotton and wool yarn. 21 x 18 inches. Tinglan Huang, Behind the Reflection (镜面的背面), 2024. Cotton and wool yarn. 35 x 40''
Jacqueline Qiu, Prey and Pray, 2025. Handwoven tapestry on floor loom. Chenille, cotton, rayon. Each 8 x 7 inches; 13 x 11 inches (with frame). Jacqueline Qiu, Dawn and Dusk, 2025. Computerized pattern weaving with merino wool on dobby loom. 6.5 x 7 inches; 9 x 11 inches (with frame). Jacqueline Qiu, Midnight Prairie, 2025. Chenille, wool, metalic thread. 8 x 7 inches; 12 x 12 inches (with frame).
Jacqueline Qiu will present intimate, small-scale tapestries woven from chenille and wool. The Prey and Pray diptych takes inspiration from the flow of energy in moments of feast, while Midnight Prairie and Dawn and Dusk reference more tender moments of contemplation. By translating the raw movement and fleeting stillness found in landscapes to woven form, Qiu pushes her geometric compositions to the point of total abstraction.
Sarah Khadraoui, Wedding Dress, 2020. Handwoven on floor loom with various fibers. 34 x 62 inches. Sarah Khadraoui, Down the Shore, 2024. Handwoven on TC-2 loom with various fibers. 41 x 18 inches. Sarah Khadraoui, Drawings, 2024. Handwoven on TC-2 loom with various fibers. 35 x 41 inches.
Other works foreground the relationship between textiles and familial memory. Sarah Khadraoui utilizes hand and jacquard weaving to find solace in the rhythmic repetition of textile production. Her practice translates personal biographies—from childhood doodles to the silhouette of her mother's Moroccan wedding dress—into complex, tactile narratives that bridge the gap between technology and tradition.
Soft Friction, installation view. Four small works on the wall, film excerpt The Domestic Machine, and knitting machine provided by Craftwork. Sweaters by DEGEN.
Lindsay Degen will present sweaters designed and made by her brand DEGEN, which bridges the gap between handcraft and industry by reimagining traditional techniques for a contemporary audience. These works celebrate the connection between maker and wearer, presenting fashion not as a fixed commodity, but as an evolving practice of collective intention.
*text by Katrina Stewart, edited by Leo Yuan.
Soft Friction, exhibition poster. Design by Linda Liang.