L Vinebaum works at the intersections of contemporary art and textile politics.
Their transdisciplinary practice is research-driven and takes many forms spanning writing, visual essays and hybrid forms, art works, curating, editing, collaborations, teaching, and organizational leadership.
The pliability of textiles that comes from the structural intersections of fibrous materials, provides a framework for their practice, where multiple areas of inquiry, forms, and modes of dissemination overlap and intersect with one another.
L Vinebaum's published writings include long form essays and book chapters, catalog essays, short form art criticism, and more experimental works combining text-based artworks, typography, and research. Their essays on contemporary fiber/textiles are included in major edited volumes internationally, including A Companion to Textile Culture (2020), Makers, Crafters, Educators: Working for Cultural Change (2020), Exhibiting Craft and Design: Transgressing the White Cube Paradigm 1930-present (2017), and The Handbook of Textile Culture (2015). L Vinebaum co-edited a special issue of Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture on the theme of "Crafting Community" (2016, with Kirsty Robertson). Published works also include Dilettante Army (2023) and Counter Signals (2024). Catalog essays and short form texts have been published by Bridge Magazine, Mana Contemporary, Praxis Fiber Workshop, Cooper Cole Gallery, Black Dog Press, Surface Design Journal, and the Journal of Modern Craft online. They have presented papers and chaired sessions at international academic conferences, including College Art Association Annual Conference (2024, 2023, 2018, 2014, 2013), Shared Ground: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to Craft Studies (2018), ASAP: the association for the study of arts of the present (2017), Textile Society of America Symposia (2016, 2014, 2012, Performance Studies International (2013, 2012), andThe Subversive Stitch Revisited: The Politics of Cloth (2013).
Their visual work and accompanying research has been published and disseminated internationally as artist-authored essays and new forms in the cultural journal Counter Signals (2021, 2017)). Their text-based works have been commissioned as print editions and large-scale installations, by Weinberg Newton Gallery, Chicago Artist Book Fair, Artspace NY as part of Art in Action at the College Art Association annual conference, and in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago. Solo exhibitions include Sector 2337, Spudnik Press, For the Thundercloud Generation, the Institute for Labor Generosity and Uniforms, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, with group exhibitions at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Workers Arts & Heritage Centre, Weinberg Newton Gallery, Heaven Gallery, and Woman Made Gallery. Public solo performances and interventions include Galérie Articule, Grace Exhibition Space, Performance Studies International, Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, Open Engagement, and the Craft Advanced Research Projects Agency.
L Vinebaum is co-curator, with Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai and Anne Wilson, of On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival at the Art Institute of Chicago (2025-2026). The exhibition drew on the museum's extensive textiles collection to explore themes of death, loss, grief, care, resistance, and survival, as mediated through textiles. With their co-curators, L is co-editor of the scholarly book that accompanies the exhibition. Also titled On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival (2025), the book is the first to explore the role of textiles in helping humans across cultures negotiate loss and grief. L's text-based work WE ARE STILL HERE was commissioned by the museum for inclusion in the exhibition as a takeaway print for viewer reflection.
Awards and Fellowships include a Craft Research Fund Grant from the Center for Craft (2018), Craft Research Fund Travel Grants from the Center for Craft (2016, 2013), a Research Fellowship from the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017), a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada - Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences in Canada (Kirsty Robertson, Principle Investigator, 2011), and multiple Faculty Enrichment Grants from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2025, 2023, 2021, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012). They were a finalist for the Textile Society of America's Founding Presidents Award (2016), and for the inaugural Emerging Voices Award (American Craft Council 2015). Their doctoral studies were supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and a Doctoral Research Scholarship from the Government of Québec (Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture). They also received a Government of Québec Graduate Research Fellowship for study at the Masters level, becoming one of the first two artists ever awarded funding for research in the visual arts.
L Vinebaum served on the Board of Directors of the Textile Society of America, the largest professional body in the field — first as Director-at-large (2021-2023), and subsequently in the dual position of co-Vice President and Academic Symposia Chair (2023-2025). In that role they directing and chaired the Society's 2024 international symposium, Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles. Past professional positions include Associate Editor of the international peer-reviewed journal Textile: Cloth and Culture (2014-2021), Visiting Faculty in the Master of Arts in Critical and Historical Craft Studies at Warren Wilson College (2019), part-time faculty at Concordia University (2009-2011), and Visiting Lecturer at Goldsmiths (2003-2006).
L Vinebaum holds a PhD from Goldsmiths, the University of London (UK); an MA in Textiles also from Goldsmiths, and a BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University (Canada). They are an Associate Professor of Fiber and Material Studies, and affiliated full-time faculty in the department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.