---
title: INSTALLATION — SULAI LOPEZ
url: https://sulailopez.com/installation
description: Plant-dyed installations, costume and woven environments by Sulai Lopez: portals, chandeliers and textiles that people enter instead of just viewing.
---

[Skip to Content](https://sulailopez.com/installation#page)

[SULAI LOPEZ](https://sulailopez.com/)

[SHOP](https://sulailopez.com/sulaishop)

[WORKSHOPS](https://sulailopez.com/workshops)

[INSTALLATION](https://sulailopez.com/installation)

[ABOUT](https://sulailopez.com/sulailopez)

[CONTACT](https://sulailopez.com/contactsulai)

INSTALLATION

# I work between costume, textile, and installation, using plant dyes, weaving, and reclaimed materials. Trained in costume design and as a performer, I think about cloth in relation to the body: how a piece feels to inhabit, how it moves, and how it changes the person inside it. At larger scale, that thinking becomes space: portals, chandeliers, and woven environments that people enter instead of just viewing.

Textiles are of great fascination as their ability to hold energetic imprints and be talismans of memory. As we crawl our way out of the dumpster fire of fast fashion and over consumerism, our relationship and awareness to textiles is essential for survival.

Indigo runs through much of my work as a symbol of transmutation. Watching a green textile transform into blue as it is exposed to oxygen is a visual symbol of the potential of personal and collective transformation.

Transformation is a main theme I explore in my work, hoping to inspire rest, ease, and reflection on how we as individuals and society can compost non life sustaining patterns and the thoughts, energy, and practice that support change.

Indigo also serves as a symbol of the complexity of existing in the reverberations of colonialism. Appreciating the beauty and magic of this pigment and the lineage of artisans, healers, and witches that have dedicated their lives to the practice while holding awareness to the shadow side of human exploitation associated with the pigment throughout history.

Cellular ponderings during covid 19

Collage in meditation on Women Who Run With the Wolves

Mother Binder of Forelock, Father Smelter of Crown, 2024

2021, 10'x10' Naturally dyed felted and woven wool

18'x48" \ plasma cut stainless steel, indigo dyed cotton netting and wool

2026, 3'x4' indigo dyed silk quilt innards, silk velvet, gold painted paper moon, apple branch, lichen, horse hair

Indigo Portal

Real Cages on Fake Borders

So Fast It Lasts Forever, 2020

2023, 6' x10' indigo dyed wool on pvc

2016, 3'x4' naturally dyed wool, chicken wire, frame, desert

4'6' \ woven layers of disguarded fast fashion

I hope the work resonates a sardonic whimsey and inspires rest: shoulders dropping, a slower pace, a mind free to drift and wonder and dream.

[VIEW WEAVINGS](https://sulailopez.com/sulaishop)

[SULAI LOPEZ](https://sulailopez.com/)

[SHOP](https://sulailopez.com/sulaishop)

[WORKSHOPS](https://sulailopez.com/workshops)

[INSTALLATION](https://sulailopez.com/installation)

[ABOUT](https://sulailopez.com/sulailopez)

[CONTACT](https://sulailopez.com/contactsulai)

[Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/sulaiazul/)

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