A Brief Introduction

Photo courtesy of A. Trankina Photography

Born in Tiraspol, Moldova, and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, the traditions of textile and fiber art have profoundly shaped my artistic practice and sense of identity. My work emerges from a personal rediscovery of familial customs while embracing experimental approaches to fiber as a contemporary art medium.

My mother and grandmother had a relationship with fiber rooted in necessity—to sew, mend, and construct clothing. Their labor transformed fabric into a means of survival, care, and resourcefulness. They paved the way for me to cultivate a different relationship with fiber, grounded in exploration, experimentation, and self-expression. As a seamstress and lifelong learner of the craft, my mother taught me that fiber belongs to the masses and that our relationship with this medium is both sacred and deeply human.

Drawing from these inherited traditions, I investigate the intimate, everyday ways fiber connects us to memory, labor, migration, and community. My practice challenges the separation of fiber from its lived, domestic origins within the conventional gallery setting, inviting viewers to reconsider textiles not only as material, but as vessels of cultural knowledge, embodied histories, and collective experience. Through experimentation, I honor the generations of makers who came before me while expanding the possibilities of fiber as a contemporary artistic language. Learn more.

Margarita Vilshanetskaya

Fiber Artist