2025/26 MCAD–Jerome Fellow Interview: Tshab Her

Becky Mutrux: You have written about the history of paaj ntaub, Hmong story cloths, and how they were used as a tool for resistance, recording history, and generating income. It’s clear that Hmong culture and craft traditions are an important influence on your artistic practice. Could you share about how you incorporate the story cloths into your work? And I’m curious who else has inspired you conceptually?

Tshab Her: I grew interested in exploring story cloths after my parents travelled back to Laos for the first time in 2017. It had been over 30 years since they had immigrated to the United States as refugees, and I could feel how important this trip was for them. I didn’t know how to talk to them about it at the time, but I began reflecting on my own feelings about their experiences of fleeing war, resettling into a new country, and making sacrifices in order to create and sustain a new life with their growing family. As I reflected on their love and labor, I asked myself: “What does it mean to be a Hmong daughter born and raised in the United States while my mom and dad struggled to adjust to this capitalist society that continually discriminated against them?” Though I did not have the words for it at the time, I could sense the fear and imagined the violence my parents had endured both in Laos and in the United States. These experiences shaped my world view and in response to the questions and feelings I had, I embroidered my first story cloth titled Returning about my parents’ journey back to Laos. Sewing images of them with their traveling backpacks gave me the space to move my feelings of our unsettled reality into a constructive hope. I was reminded of how my ancestors had documented their lives with paaj ntaub as they navigated displacement, persecution, and war. In relation to Hmong migration and movement depicted in traditional story cloths, I saw the connections in my parents’ own journey of going back to a land they once knew halfway around the world. Personalizing my parents’ experiences and eventually recording my own stories through story cloth helped me uncover and identify what it meant for me to be a Hmong woman and artist in America.

My art practice draws from the stories of Hmong resistance as well as from other cultures and communities who have fought for their dignity and cultural autonomy. I am inspired by people who reject imperial propaganda and work together to create systems that are non-transactional, flow in the spirit of hospitality, and live in harmony with nature. Self expression through clothing, dance, and laughter while communing with my loved ones keep me grounded, inspired, free, and secure, granting me the space to create art that challenges and disrupts the status quo.

BM: Will you tell us a bit more about your choice to work in textiles? Was this how you've always worked as an artist, or a more recent development?

TH: When I was 7 years old, I remember taking paper out of my school notebook and drawing a small black teddy bear with a mechanical pencil for the first time. I spent that afternoon drawing a few other stuffed animals and stored the drawings away in an orange folder. Art and creativity had come naturally to me, but because I felt the pressure to conform to a standard academic path and had immigrant parents who were busy making ends meet while raising five children, I did not have the proper support, encouragement, or avenue to pursue art until I made the decision to take an art class during my senior year in high school. Taking painting and drawing classes at the age of 17 colored my world in a way I hadn’t known before and gave me a sense of direction. This led me to majoring in studio arts at my local community college and later transferring to an art school in Chicago. Outside of seeing my mom and aunties embroider growing up, my first introduction to working in textiles was during undergrad when one of my professors brought a roll of muslin to class. The familiarity of cloth resonated with me and I grew interested in making art out of textiles.

This was an important shift in the beginning stages of my art career because as a young adult who had moved from a sheltered suburban town to a big city, living outside of my childhood home and “adulting” brought up many questions regarding my identity and purpose in life. I was being confronted by my own naivety and working in textiles became an avenue for me to unpack these limitations and ignorance—sewing was an entry point for me to connect with my heritage as a Hmong woman. I also began researching Hmong history, culture, and paaj ntaub practices in order to deepen my art practice as I started my journey into self discovery and recovery.

BM: Working with textiles can be a laborious process. Can you talk about what the investment of labor adds to your work?

TH: Sewing teaches me how to be patient, present, soft, and slow. I move my body at a meditative pace that follows a needle and thread—in and out, in and out, in and out. My labor is revealed when the images I embroider come to life one stitch at a time. Though I may grow tired repeating these movements and feel the accrued stress in my hands, I see my labor as an intentional and connected offering to those around me. Embroidery is tender and intimate. It connects me to the lineage of Hmong women who kept our culture alive through paaj ntaub despite the pressure to conform to the surrounding dominant cultures as an ethnic minority. I believe their resilient spirit lives within me and although the labor can be strenuous, I choose to take on the responsibility of preserving the traditions of my culture as I adapt and move to the rapidly changing times of the modern era as a Hmong woman living in the United States.

BM: Text is a common element in your practice. How do the visual elements in your work support your use of language to express ideas about identity?

TH: The Hmong people have survived displacement and erasure by having strong oral storytelling and paaj ntaub traditions. We have told our own stories, sewn our own clothes, and strategized new ways to sustain ourselves even when it was hard as nation-states rose around us. In the same way, I tell my own story through my art practice and use text as a way to communicate both matter-a-factly and poetically. The visual elements in my work are utilized in a similar way.

When I created my first story cloth, I attempted to mimic the style of traditional story cloths and follow the footsteps of this beautiful craft and legacy. I drew from these visual elements to create my own narrative by embroidering images of the world around me that included daily objects such as double flossers, logos of phone service companies, and portraits of my family members. Putting these images together tell varying stories that express who I am, what I associate myself with, how I am perceived, and shares my social, political, and class positioning as a second generation Hmong American woman. These identifying markers and symbols are often defined by imperial systems that dominate and control the masses in order to hoard resources for itself. Rather than succumbing to these toxic ideologies or associating myself with the tools of empire to the best of my abilities, I attempt to define who I am with clarity like my ancestors while taking responsibility for the implications of living in a post-modern world. Language, translation, and visuals are important aspects of my work, but in the end, my embodiment, how I see myself, and who I surround myself with defines my identity.

BM: Can you share a little about winning the Jerome Fellowship as a Hmong artist at this moment in time?

TH: I am humbled with gratitude to be a recipient of the Jerome Fellowship. Receiving this recognition has not only helped combat my imposter syndrome, but has grown my confidence as an artist here in the Twin Cities. I moved to Minnesota almost five years ago in hopes of finding a supportive community and expanding my art practice while having more access to Hmong culture and food. I am grateful to now live in a city that has been shaped by Hmong presence compared to growing up in a city that did not know who the Hmong were. The cultural erasure and ignorance I had experienced growing up in a predominately white suburb in Illinois negatively impacted my self esteem. But moving to Minnesota and seeing Hmong people doing everyday things helped demystify my Hmongness because I, too, am a Hmong person doing everyday things—it feels both special and mundane. In this, the fellowship award has granted me the opportunity to share my story and create new art that I hope speaks to my generation and brings awareness to the trauma, discrimination, and abuse we have endured and continue to endure, especially now in 2026 as we work together to support our communities that have been impacted by Operation Metro Surge and navigate the ongoing abuse of power of this administration.

BM: What do you hope your audience takes away from experiencing your art?

TH: Though the bright colors I often use in my work lean towards a perspective of having a glass half full rather than half empty, it does not take away from the violence, grief, and trauma of living in an imperial system that destroys anything it touches. The work I create is my attempt at resisting imperial ideologies while choosing to celebrate a communal sense of being with each other and nature. I create, dance, laugh, cry, rest, and work because I am alive and have the will to continue with the support of a loving community. I hope my stories are received with openness and that my vulnerability is a catalyst for my audience’s own healing and self discovery. I hope that when they experience my art, they see the strength and hope amidst the grief and sorrow.

BM: If you could describe your work in one word, what would it be?

TH: Autonomy