Image: Amanda Browder, ‘Soft Monuments’ (2026), Missoula: donated fabric
Brooklyn artist Amanda Browder is working with University of Montana students and Missoula residents on ‘Soft Monuments’, a pair of community-made textile installations that will be draped on two buildings this autumn. Browder is artist in residence at the university’s School of Art and Game Design for the semester, and the museum says the installation will take place in November.
Both sites are now named. One work will drape the Music Building on the University of Montana campus; the other will cover Missoula’s historic Brunswick Building downtown. The artist’s own project page still lists the second location as undetermined, so the museum’s announcement is the more current account.
Public sewing days are open to anyone and require no previous experience. The university’s events listing carries a Campus Sewing Day at Knowles Gallery, Fine Arts 201, on Wednesday 2 September from 10 a.m.; a session at the Welcome Feast on the Oval on Friday 4 September from 11 a.m.; and a Soft Monuments Public Sewing Evening at Knowles Gallery the same day from 5 to 8 p.m., part of the monthly First Friday Starts at UM campaign. A further Public Sewing Day runs on Wednesday 16 September from noon to 5 p.m. in the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s upstairs Payne Gallery, inside the exhibition ‘Il Maestro! Works by Morton Levin, a Centennial Celebration’.
Browder describes the residency as a set of site-specific interventions that activate campus spaces, examine material labour and make participation part of the work, alongside workshops, lectures and a public unveiling. The project is supported by the university’s School of Art and Game Design and the Flagship Foundation.
The textile panels are assembled from donated fabric. Organisers ask for cotton, cotton blends or ripstop in vibrant patterned or solid colours; fluorescent material, sequins and velvet are accepted, while clothing, stretch fabric and white, tan or beige cloth are not. Donation bins are listed at the Zootown Arts Community Center, the Missoula Art Museum, Missoula Public Library, Confident Stitch, the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, the Potomac Greenough Community Center and several university sites, including the Montana Museum of Art and Culture lobby, the Fine Arts Building and the University Center.
The Brunswick gives the project a link to one of Missoula’s oldest surviving hotels. The Montana National Register Sign Program records that the Brunswick Hotel at 223 Railroad Street was built in 1890–91 as an example of vernacular commercial architecture with a Queen Anne emphasis, served the town’s railroad era, and was converted into an apartment building around 1930. The artist’s project page describes the present Brunswick as an artist-run studio building.
The Montana Museum of Art and Culture, founded in 1895 and one of three state museums in Montana, is at 795 S 5th St E on the university campus. It is open Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 6 p.m.
