Wrapping Up

Grounded in shared cultural practices of head wrapping, exploring how fabric moves between communities.

— Sara Gelber, Creator.

Category

Textile

  • n/a

Creator

Sara Gelber

Program

Interior Design, 2025

Wrapping Up creates space for the possibility of interpersonal exchange between self-sequestered Orthodox Jewish and Caribbean/African American women in Crown Heights. Grounded in shared cultural practices of head wrapping, the project explores how fabric can move between individual bodies and communal interiors, suggesting that understanding might emerge through mutual experiences of gender. Textiles offer adornment, privacy, and protection when worn, and these same cloths are then layered, hung, and draped within a suspended grid system. This transforms the interior into a reflection of its participants, shifting as textiles overlap, interact with light, or settle over other materials. The space becomes an extension of the body: responsive, expressive, and always changing. Wrapping Up considers how intimate cultural rituals might foster connection through material presence and shared visual language.