BIO

L Vinebaum is a transdisciplinary researcher, art writer, artist, and educator. They work at the intersections of contemporary art and textile cultures, on projects that center labor, social connection, community, and the politics of historicization in contemporary art. Their practice spans research and critical writing, published visual essays and hybrid forms, curated exhibitions, editorial projects, organizational leadership, teaching and mentorship, and artworks in a diverse range of media and forms. The pliability of textiles that comes from the structural intersection of fibrous materials, provides a metaphor for a transdisciplinary practice in which multiple forms, actions, areas of inquiry, and modes of dissemination overlap and intersect with one another.

L Vinebaum was Guest Curator, with Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai and Anne Wilson, of On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival (2025-2026), a major exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Five years in the making, it marked the first time that an external team of artists worked with the museum's extensive textiles collection to curate a project in the museum's Textile galleries. The curatorial team co-edited a scholarly book that accompanies the exhibition, also titled On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival (2025), and contributed an essay to the volume. 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.

As a researcher and writer, L Vinebaum writes about labor justice and working conditions in the garment and textile industries, the gig economy, and in academia. Their 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 international craft and textile anthologies 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). An essay is also forthcoming in Material Matters: The Art and Culture of Contemporary Textiles (2026). 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 essays for the cultural publications Dilettante Army (2023) and Counter Signals (2024, 2021, 2017). 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),, and The Subversive Stitch Revisited: The Politics of Cloth (2013).

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 a finalist 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 Fellowship from the Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture du Québec government. They were one of the very first artists in Quebec to ever receive a Graduate Research Fellowship from the Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture du Québec, which supported their studies at the Masters level.

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, and Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival. Collaborative and participatory workshops and performances were held as part of the conference program of Open Engagement, the Craft Advanced Research Projects Agency, and in collaboration with the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials. Text based works in print, multiples, and large-scale installations were commissioned 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 On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Most recently they served on the Board of Directors of the Textile Society of America, first as Director-at-large (2021-2023), and subsequently in the dual position of co-Vice President and Academic Symposia Chair (2023-2025), directing and chairing the Society's 2024 international symposium titled Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles. Past professional positions also include Guest Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago (2020-2026), 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), Visiting Lecturer at Goldsmiths, and part-time faculty at Concordia University .

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.