On a snowy night, Natalie arrives, with just a backpack, in Brooklyn Heights for the final leg of her sabbatical. She begins a self-portrait project exploring photography and writing across the boroughs of New York City.
One day, she cuts up a t-shirt from her adventures and sews it back together again by hand, creating the first shirt of the collection that would become Project Alabama and, eventually, Alabama Chanin. Finding inspiration in the act of handwork, the next morning she makes another shirt; the next day, another.
Slide 1: Contact sheet of photos from Natalie’s sabbatical beginning in La Gran Sabana, Venezuela, and ending in Brooklyn Heights, New York, 2000, photograph by Robert Rausch
Slide 2: Photo of La Gran Sabana from Natalie’s contact sheet, Venezuela, 2000
Slide 3: “En route to Crasqui: Francis Ford Coppola’s Boat,” a page from Natalie’s Journal, Los Roques National Park, Venezuela, 1999, photograph by Natalie Chanin
Slide 4: Pages from Sioseh 7, a magazine by Sissi Farassat, featuring Natalie’s self-portrait project “Stickers”, captured at the Prince Farm Deli, Prince Street, New York City, photograph by Robert Rausch
Slide 5: Early “Alabama” hand-sewn t-shirt from the archives; “Sample Page” included in Sioseh 7 featuring one of Natalies’ self-portrait stickers, photograph by Robert Rausch
Slide 6: Sioseh 7 cover; Sioseh 7 double-page spread of Natalie’s self-portrait stickers, photograph by Robert Rausch
Slide 7: “Brooklyn Heights to Manhattan” from contact sheet, New York City, 2000, photographs by Natalie Chanin
Slide 8: Early “Alabama” hand-sewn t-shirt from the archives, stitched using an original t-shirt from El Canto de la Ballena in Los Roques, Venezuela, photograph by Robert Rausch