Suite Américaine
April 3 – July 26, 2026
The exhibition Suite Américaine was curated by Marilyn Zapf and Sarah Darro and organized by the Center for Craft in 2021.
Its presentation at the Museum for Art in Wood is curated by Jennifer-Navva Milliken, Executive Director and Chief Curator.
The daughter, granddaughter, and sister of carpenters, artist BA Harrington carries craft lineage into contemporary practice. Part of a growing, intersectional cohort of women-identifying woodworkers, Harrington learned her trade, like many before her, by reproducing furniture forms of the past. Suite Americaine holds a reverence for the history of American furniture making, but is inflected with a contemporary feminist imagination. This body of work references late-seventeenth through early-nineteenth century dower chests, writing desks, and sewing tables, which were designed specifically for women but historically made by men. However, where these objects once stored and concealed the labor and craft skill of women, Harrington opens them. The six objects expose, activate, and celebrate their rich interiors, with linens and quilts spilling out of their wooden casings. The use of French in the exhibition’s title, Suite Américaine, is both a nod to the eighteenth-century term for a furniture set and a phrasing that allows the artist to feminize the word “American.” Similarly, the work on display acts as a feminist intervention on historic furniture. Harrington not only remakes the original forms with her own hands, asserting her technical skill, but also highlights the revolutionary potential of furniture to self-actualize the creative endeavors of women.
Suite Américan is a part of Radical Americana, a series of exhibitions organized by a consortium of Philadelphia’s extensive collection of arts and cultural institutions that celebrate how today’s artists are continuing the city’s unique and rich legacy as a center for creativity and civic engagement. To learn more about the other participating artists and organizations, please click HERE.
About the Artist:
Since 2012, Harrington has been a Professor of Woodworking in the Department of Art and Design, and Director of the Wood Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She continues to write essays, speak at conferences, and build sculptural work in reference to early American furniture forms. She has held Windgate Artist Residencies at San Diego State University and SUNY Purchase and was a recipient of the Center for Craft’s inaugural Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. Each year this substantial mid-career grant is awarded to two artists who are revising, reclaiming, and advancing the history of craft through their work.
Suite Américaine is generously supported by the Cambium Giving Society of the Museum for Art in Wood, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Bresler Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Windgate Foundation.
Suite Américaine exhibition graphics © 2021 Center for Craft; graphic design by RoqueStrew; drawings © ____ B.A. Harrington. Used courtesy of the Center for Craft.
