Jenny Yurshansky’s piece titled The Border Will Not Hold #1 consists of thin silk chiffon collaged with traditional Moldovan folk patterns and Soviet-era illustrations sourced from an alphabet book, which was one of the items that her mother packed when she fled from Moldova. This work is the first created in a series of four. These images depict children and adults conversing in various scenarios. An older woman, presumingly a teacher or grandmother, is reading a book to two small children, one sitting on her lap and the other standing close. Towards the bottom of the works are a larger group of adults and children, all standing amongst one another. A woman on the left is holding a small baby, leaning over a stroller as if she just picked them up. On the right, the scene transitions to the outdoors with a father hiking with two boys and a woman waving to them. The lower corner pictures a woman holding one baby and a toddler standing near them. All images of children and parents are illustrated in light hues, creating a cheerful and calm tone. The patterns and imagery are delicately weaved onto silk organza that is suspended in a frame with meticulously stitched thread. The dimensions of the piece is 28 ¼” x 25” x 1 ¼” and is meant to be hung away from the wall so as to cast a shadow behind it. The shadows from the work have hard lines and cast the forms of the images in great detail. Some people disappear into outlines in the shadow while others create a full form. The pattern work is woven in a black thread, with stitching thick enough to create an opaque shape ideal for translation in shadow form. The patterns are somewhat disassembled, with thinner lines of pattern framing the composition on the top and bottom, and larger patterns surrounding the children’s book images. Overall, the composition is broken in half with the top portion focusing mainly on the folk patterns and the bottom portion is primarily taken up by children's illustrations while maintaining a balance between the two styles.

What I find most intriguing about this piece is the use of the space it is installed in. The physical frame, tapestry, and threading is just half of the piece. What activates the piece into it’s full potential is the use of sunlight, which projects a shadow of the intricate imagery included on the piece. These shadows uphold the general structure of the embroidery, but the images lose details, color, and context, a direct representation of the erasure of culture and identity in Moldova that originally enticed Yurshansky’s family to leave their home country. Utilizing the shadow as a crucial aspect of the work opens the piece up to the space around the piece itself. It becomes a part of the environment and the viewers are therefore more immersed in its aura. 

The Border Will Not Hold directly confronts the trauma and systematic oppression that is often masked in seemingly benign images and symbols. more about this topic...