A shroud is a cloth. A shroud obscures, but it also protects what is underneath. A shroud cradles that which it covers at a time of transition, a transmutation from one state to another. Above all, a shroud is indexical: it says that something once came from the land, was severed from it, and will now be returned to the land. The human that is made of clay and mud returns to clay and mud; ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
I wrote an exhibition text—textiles, terroir, wool, healing—for Adrian Pepe’s A Shroud is a Cloth at Nika Projects in Dubai. The full text is available to read here.