Lu Heintz Knot Note Net: A Syllabary
August 31, 2026–
February 27, 2027
Lu Heintz Knot Note Net: A Syllabary
August 31, 2026–
February 27, 2027
Hunt-Cavanagh Gallery
Exhibition Opening Details
Meet The Artist Reception
Tuesday, September 22,
5pm – 7pm
Hunt-Cavanagh Gallery
About the Exhibition
Knot Note Net: A Syllabary features recent works and interconnected projects emerging from Lu Heintz’s ongoing investigations into linguistics, textiles, labor, and material knowledge systems. Spanning sculpture, prints, drawings, installation, and video, these inquiries take shape through shifting media, processes, and patterns. Consider how the title sets this exploration in play: change one letter and knot becomes note becomes net.
Heintz brings gender, technology, and care into dialogue through a feminist lens. They stitch, fold, type, stamp, and pin objects, using repetition, accumulation, and variation as transformational strategies. The artist draws from traditional net-making, domestic needlework, and industrial-scale weaving, connecting these textile histories with computational systems and digital technologies. These bodies of work set relationships with materiality and temporality into motion. What shifts between hand and machine, pattern and language, individual gesture and shared system?
About the Artist
Lu Heintz is an artist, educator, and feminist collaborator based in Providence, RI. Through textiles, metalsmithing, video, sound, installation, performance, paper works, and writing, their transdisciplinary practice engages feminist ethics of care, labor, and technology while examining personal experience on sociocultural scales. The artist’s work has been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally at venues including the RISD Museum; Metal Museum, Memphis, TN; R.K. Projects, New York; Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, Lubbock, TX; Wedding Cake House, Providence; Strano Film Fest, Capestrano, Italy; and Brood Film Fest, Exeter, UK. They have received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the International Sculpture Center, and the Mellon Foundation. Residencies include MASS MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, and Arts Letters & Numbers, NY. Heintz is Assistant Professor of Open Media in the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University. Their writing has appeared in Book Marks (Pressing Concern Books, 2020), Repair: Sustainable Design Futures (Routledge, 2023), Event Scores by Artist-Parents (Rooftop Press, 2023), and Document (Are.na, 2025). www.luheintz.com
Supporters
Knot Note Net: A Syllabary is organized by Carol Stakenas, Director & Chief Curator in collaboration with Lu Heintz. Organizational assistance provided by Nichole Speciale, Exhibitions & Collections Manager; Janice DiLustro, Administrative Coordinator in Art; and Tori Augusta, Communications & Design Associate. Additional production expertise is provided by Ben Kaplan, Kate McMullen Gallagher, and the Physical Plant team. Funding for the exhibition is generously provided by Providence College’s Division of Academic Affairs, with additional support by the Department of Art & Art History.
Installation Images
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Lu Heintz, "Everything is Fiber: A New Lexicon", 2024. Image courtesy of the artist. -
Lu Heintz, "Pattern #2 (for esme)", 2026. Image courtesy of the artist.