Tension Studies by Indira Allegra

December 2024, English, 8.5 x 4 in, 108 pages, softcover
Edition of 200
Design + Published by: Sming Sming Books
Production: For the Birds Trapped in Airports 

In Tension Studies, a domme's client becomes a lover and a lover becomes a client but it is a relationship with a weaver's wooden loom which is the most intimate of them all. Through the frame of the loom, tension lines trembling between human and nonhuman experience interlock to reveal a text/ile dense with phenomenologies of longing, touch, and the dangers of encounter. 

Commissioned by The Lab, San Francisco, with funding from the Gerbode Foundation and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation with additional support by DisArt.

Praise for Tension Studies

“Between the inanimate and the fleshly: wood and thread, muscle and bone . . . desire and the intellect: one body, and another’s . . . a text to read slowly, appreciatively, and with loving care.” —Glenn Adamson, curator, writer, and historian

“Themes of intimacy, power, chronic illness, and currencies spiral through Tension Studies in a striking and unexpectedly beautiful coil.” —Amber Dawn, Lambda Literary Award winner and author of My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems

“I’m delighted Tension Studies exists. Indira Allegra writes with an ingenious, wide-ranging mind and heart.” —R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit

Indira Allegra is a conceptual artist and founder of Cazimi Studio. Cazimi Studio uses weaving as a framework to creatively transform tension within different sites. The studio is unique in its emphasis on performance, publication and the integration of spiritual care as preferred design solutions. Allegra’s work has been featured in The Art Newspaper, Artnet, Art Journal, BOMB Magazine, SF Chronicle, All Arts, and ARTFORUM and in exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY); Center for Craft Creativity and Design (Asheville, NC); John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI); Gray Area (San Francisco, CA); the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA) and San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (San Jose, CA) among others. Allegra’s writing has been featured in Theater, TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, American Craft Magazine, Panorama Journal, Leonardo, and Material Intelligence, among others. They have been the recipient of numerous awards including the Burke Prize, Creative Capital, United States Artists Fellowship, Gerbode Choreographer Award, Art Matters Fellowship and CripTech Metaverse Fellowship. indiraallegra.com | cazimistudio.space | @indiraallegrastudio