B-side: (Broken) Memory and Remix

Camella Ehlke (she/her)  is a designer and artist who works with the sewing machine as her paintbrush. She creates sculptures and designed objects characterized by uneven shapes, pillowy textures, and vibrant patterns made of surplus clothing fabric and shoelaces. While male voices have dominated the $300B streetwear industry, before there was Ecko/Complex and Supreme, Virgil Abloh and Ronny Fieg (KITH), there was Triple Five Soul, a clothing label founded in 1989 by then nineteen-year-old Camella Ehlke. Having left streetwear behind her in 2001, Camella continued exploring ways to repurpose textiles, and in 2019, she began a conversation with her friend and advocate, the Off-White™ designer Virgil Abloh, discussing how she could use what Abloh called her “crash of fabric" to reinvent furniture. Her expansion beyond clothing utilizes her unique sewing techniques to outfit furniture pieces with repurposed fashion label fabrics. For example, the Ladies of Leisure chair set is made of surplus fabric from Vigil Abloh’s Off-White clothing brand. Ehlke's artistry is deeply aligned with her goal of finding the intersection between art, fashion, and sustainability.

Starting her company 555 Soul at the age of nineteen, Ehlke has consistently demonstrated dedication to her craft and creativity. In the past and present, Ehlke’s 151 Ludlow storefront has served as both a fashion house and the convening space for musicians and visual artists. In 2001, she received recognition as one of Crain's New York Business 40 under 40, highlighting her outstanding achievements and leadership in the fashion industry at a young age. In 2019, she showcased her remarkable talent in the Guilty by Association Hey What's Up showcase, captivating audiences with her unique artistic vision through a mixed-media furniture collection. Hey What’s Up includes a collaboration with renowned fashion designer Virgil Abloh, solidifying her status as a prominent figure in the industry and showcasing her ability to bring a foundational perspective to the forefront of fashion.

In his artwork, David Ellis (he/him) explores the intersection of urban and rural land and mind-scapes, recorded conversations, music, and kinetic flow. Employing a finely tuned, improvisational style, Ellis delivers visual compositions, sound works, and tightly sequenced moving images that capture a singular search for the connectivity within any given environment. Ellis's process is one of  self reflection, debate, and conversation with an ensemble of engineers, writers, artists and musicians, resulting in immersive and multi-sensory experiences shared with audiences over the course of days, sometimes weeks. David has dedicated himself to engineering an alternate universe centered around a sonic, multi-dimensional, time-based lane entitled, “The Rainy Suns.”

Featured solo and collaborative installations and exhibitions include presentations at Rice University Gallery, TX; The Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, OH; South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art Winston Salem, NC; and the Huntington Museum of Art, WV. His work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, P.S. 1, Roebling Hall Gallery, Jeffrey Deitch Projects, and Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY. Ellis has held residencies with Savannah College of Art and Design’s Red Gallery, GA; Landmarks at the University of Texas, Austin; and The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the New York 2011 PULSE Prize. Prominent collections include The Margulies Warehouse, The Deutsche Bank Collection, Saatchi Collection, Beth Rudin DeWoody, and Hadley Martin Fisher Collection. Notable commissions include work for Blue Note Records, Nobu Porcupine Creek, CA, Neuehouse, NYC.

Adama Delphine Fawundu (she/her) is a photographer and visual artist born in Brooklyn, NY of Bubi, Mende, Bamileke, and Krim descent. Her distinct visual language centers on themes of indigenization and ancestral memory. She began her career documenting Hip hop culture in NYC in 1993. Her work often incorporates elements of portraiture, symbolism, and storytelling to evoke a sense of connection and empowerment.

Fawundu co-published the critically acclaimed book MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. Her solo exhibition, In the Spirit of Áṣẹ is currently on view at the Newark Museum of Art. She has presented her work at The Tate Modern, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harvard University amongst many other institutions. Her past fellowships and residencies include: BRIClab and the Project for Empty Space, NJ; and she is currently in residence at the Fountainhead in Miami, Fl. Fawundu has received awards from the Catchlight Fellowship, the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, New York Foundation for The Arts Photography Fellowship, and the Rema Hort Mann Artist Grant, amongst others. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art; Princeton University Museum and The Petrucci Family Foundation of African American Art, both NJ; Bryn Mawr College, PA; The Brooklyn Historical Society; Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, FL; The David C. Driskell Art Collection, College Park, MD; and a number of private collections. She is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University.