Entryways: Xenobia Bailey continues the collaboration between ICA and New York-based textile studio Maharam, which invites artists to reimagine the windows of ICA’s façade. For the 2025-26 edition, Philly-based artist Xenobia Bailey created a design characterized by her “Funktional” aesthetic and rooted in her decades-long fiber arts practice.
In this work, Cosmic-Roots, Xenobia Bailey transforms ICA’s façade through her multidisciplinary aesthetic, “Funk-tional Design.” These digitized crochet forms draw on histories of Black domestic workers, including the artist’s mother, while embellishing several figures important to African American cultural continuity. The cover of the 1836 American Anti-Slavery Almanac is an homage to the land-based knowledge of sharecroppers and free Black families of that era. A towering masquerader, inspired by indigenous spiritual traditions, orbits a cosmos alongside experimental composer Sun Ra (1914–1993), who fronted an ensemble of philosophically expansive musicians called the Arkestra. Bailey’s cultural beacons invite viewers to look up and take in these expressions of joy, rhythm, and ancestral spirit.
Entryways: Xenobia Bailey is organized by Denise Ryner, Andrea B. Laporte Curator.
Experience the artwork through Augmented Reality
About the work
A dysfunctional television and record player are reactivated as functioning to set the scene for story storied beings inspired by centuries of indigenous and black ceremonies of gratitude. Watching over the scene is the late mystical musician and philosopher, Sun Ra. Bailey animates a yarn doll collection by Shinnecock-Montaukett artist Terri Levi. The dolls twirl and bow through time. These ancestral figures serve as reminders to create a more harmonious world right where you are.
Excerpt from Xenobia Bailey’s COS-MEDICS
Support
Support for Entryways is provided by Maharam Digital Projects. Additional support has been provided by Cheri & Steven Friedman, Christina Weiss Lurie, and B.Z. & Michael Schwartz.
Image of Sun Ra courtesy of Sundazed Music / Modern Harmonic.
Image from the 1836 American Anti-Slavery Almanac courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia.
