THREAD MEMORY PROJECT
2018–present
"Not always able to speak a common language, thread becomes our lingua franca."1
Deborah Valoma is currently working on the concept of "thread memory," a multi-year, interdisciplinary inquiry addressing the gendered role of threadwork as a signifier of identity and an agent of cultural continuity. A combination of archiving, researching, writing, and responsive art making, her work traces the lineage of Armenian needlelace and other forms of handwork and their relationship to memory and postmemory2 in the Armenian diaspora.
TEXTILE ARCHIVE
The Thread Memory Project was sparked by the inheritance of her grandmother's textile collection, which consists of more than one hundred pieces of embroidery, crochet, weaving, and importantly, Armenian needlelace made by her foremothers in "the old country" and in the Armenian-American diaspora. Through multiple methodologies—including building a textile archive, surveying existing scholarship, researching private and public textile collections, conducting field research and interviews with makers, and her own creative practice—this inquiry seeks to unpack the transition in meaning from a female domestic expression to a statement of cultural resistance.
projects include
ARMENIAN NEEDLELACE INITIATIVE
Deborah Valoma's current work also includes a collaboration with Elise Youssoufian. Conceived of in 2024 and launched in 2026, the mission of the Armenian Needlelace Initiative is to engage the global network of Armenian needlelace practitioners, researchers, curators, collectors, and enthusiasts. Our goal is to help revitalize interest in what some consider an antiquated artistic practice by encouraging learning and making, building a warehouse of resources, fosterin
g communication and community across scattered populations, and providing a forum for storytelling and creative cultural exchange.
STUDIO PRACTICE
Currently engaged in a creative call-and-response with her Armenian foremothers,
STUDIO PRACTICE
Currently engaged in a creative call-and-response with her Armenian foremothers,
Valoma is crafting a body of work that re-remembers untold narratives and mends cultural through-lines. Hands-on projects include: On the Way to Aleppo, a crocheted tablecloth narrating the story of her grandmother’s first cousin Satinig Chopoorian who did not survive the genocide; Tending the Bones, a series of hand-woven linen shrouds commemorating those on her family tree marked as “died in massacres”; and Re-Making / Re-Remembering, a series of crocheted doilies duplicating pieces in her family collection as a means of communicating with her foremothers.
RESEARCH + WRITING
Valoma's academic research and creative practice over two decades has considered the structural and conceptual connections between threadwork, language, and memory. Each, like the other, is composed of discrete units that in the aggregate create a composition of meaning. And all are vehicles for storytelling. In the last few years, her research and published essays have conceptually aligned with the Thread Memory Project. These include “When Linen Remembers" (2021); “Alluring Monotony+Luminous Threads" (2022); “Following an Anonymous Thread" (2023); a review of the exhibition Janyak: Armenian Art of Knots and Loops (2024); and "Thread Memory" (2026).
1 Deborah Valoma. 2026. "Thread Memory." 23.5, edited by Erdem İlgi Akter. Istanbul. Turkey: Hrant Dink Foundation Publications.
2 Postmemory is a term first defined by Marianne Hirsch in the early 1990s to describe the generational experience of personal and collective trauma.
Photo: Deborah Valoma, linen shroud, handwoven, 2021
Photo: Elise Youssoufian, Deborah Valoma weaving On the Way to Aleppo, The Imperial Harem (Harem-i Hümayûn) at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, 2024