Jessy Slim

Roll Up Project is pleased to present a selection of sculptures by Jessy Slim. Slim’s recent sculptures feature fabric painted with chickpea clay that is stretched across wood, wire, and metal structures. The chickpea-covered surface  – sometimes taut, other times twisted and draped – draws comparisons to landscapes and animal hides.

Two large sculptures fill the Harrison Street window:  Chickpea Landscapes, 12 (2025) and Chickpea Landscapes, Femme (2025). Both works reflect on her Lebanese heritage, and on the issues she observed in Beirut in 2020. In addition to the widespread destruction caused by a chemical explosion in August 2020, the Chickpea Landscapes comment on the many economic and structural challenges the country faces. The underlying structures in Slim’s sculptures interact with the fabric and the chickpea texture, twisting and distorting the surfaces. Slim sometimes lights her sculptures from behind to enhance the crackling texture of the chickpea clay, and to illuminate those hidden structures.

In addition to thinking about the political stance of the work, the chickpeas are a reminder of the unifying force of a shared meal. Chickpeas are a staple across many Middle Eastern cuisines, and bring to mind the idea that people with varying political or social perspectives might all share the same positive memories and associations through a single ingredient.

In the Third Street windows, Slim presents several wall-hung sculptures from the series Little Guy Big Energy (2025). Wire frames are visible through the sheer fabric, creating strong linear elements. Considering Slim’s career in architecture, these may be studies for large-scale works, like 3-D sketches for future possibilities.

About the Artist

Jessy Slim creates work about a space in between, a place that deconstructs, re-frames, re-examines our surroundings, systems in place and their implications. Utilizing architecture, installation, sculpture and photography, intuition and memory drives her research-making based practice. These projects find means of critiquing power and authority. They act as an iconoclast, and synthesize a way to understand and question the innate nature of things around us. Through her own grappling of displacement, memory and the notion of home, the work encompasses and embraces her personal history through the lens of a Lebanese immigrant.

Slim earned an BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley in 2014, and MA in Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2021. Her work has been exhibited at 120710, Works in Progress, and Root Division, among others. She was recently featured in the New York Times article, “A Troubled Homeland Embodied in a Bag of Chickpeas.”

Learn more about Jessy Slim on her website or Instagram.