Woven Ecologies: Environmental Installations by Elsabe Dixon

Featured image: Honeycomb and Black Rubber Structures, Elsabe Dixon, 2023, beeswax and black rubber, 15 x 12 x 10 in. / 38.1 x 30.48 x 25.4 cm.

In her large-scale installations and fiber-based works, Elsabe Dixon treats material as both metaphor and method.

Elsabe Dixon is an installation and fiber artist whose work uses participatory structures and reclaimed materials to address ecology, sustainability, and environmental awareness.

Cocoon (2025), Up-cycle Culture, Connecticut (2025), and Spotted Lanternfly Zones of Syncopation (2019) engage audiences physically and conceptually, using steel, yarn, reclaimed fibers, and patterned repetition to confront ecological invisibility, industrial excess, and invasive species. Dixon’s practice sits at the intersection of sculpture, social engagement, and environmental awareness, transforming craft traditions into platforms for collective attention.

Cocoon, Elsabe Dixon, 2025, steel and yarn, 8 x 8 x 8 ft. / 96 x 96 x 96 in.

Cocoon is an immersive steel-and-yarn structure scaled to architectural proportions, inviting viewers to enter a woven enclosure that references both shelter and transformation. Originally conceived for interaction with live silkworms, the work foregrounds biological processes that often go unnoticed. Installed at Riverview Gallery, the sculpture shifted emphasis toward the erasure of nature within a digitally saturated culture. The open lattice allows light and space to pass through, reinforcing the paradox of presence and absence. Cocoon functions simultaneously as habitat, threshold, and warning, suggesting that what sustains life is increasingly rendered invisible.

Up-cycle Culture, Connecticut, Elsabe Dixon, 2025, mixed fiber and wire, 5 x 4 x 3.5 ft. / 60 x 48 x 42 in.

This sculptural form assembles mixed fibers, wire, and discarded materials into a dense, nest-like volume. Up-cycle Culture emerges directly from conversations around fast fashion and industrial waste, embedding those concerns into its physical construction. The work’s layered textiles, stripes, weaves, and padding, retain traces of prior use, refusing the clean finish associated with consumer goods. By reconfiguring waste into a communal structure, Dixon reframes excess as responsibility, emphasizing cycles of use, discard, and potential repair.

Spotted Lanternfly Zones of Syncopation, Elsabe Dixon, 2019, mixed media, 8 x 8 x 4 ft. / 96 x 96 x 48 cm.

Commissioned by Penn State University, Spotted Lanternfly Zones of Syncopation translates ecological threat into visual rhythm. The installation consists of Fibonacci-based disc forms in increasing scale, arranged as an interactive field. The repeating pattern echoes natural growth systems while referencing the invasive spotted lanternfly’s rapid spread. By combining mathematical order with organic irregularity, Dixon creates an accessible entry point for public engagement. Shown again in Washington, DC in 2024, the work demonstrates how visual systems can function as educational tools without didacticism.

Across these works, Elsabe Dixon uses weaving, repetition, and participation to surface environmental issues often overlooked in everyday life. Whether addressing digital detachment, consumer waste, or invasive species, her installations transform ecological data into embodied experience. The viewer is not a passive observer but a participant within interdependent systems, woven, fragile, and shared.

Pink Wings, Elsabe Dixon, 2023, colored gouache and colored pencil, 24 x 18 in. / 60.96 x 45.72 cm.