‘Threads’ is a series by Charlene Komuntale and an exploration of how beauty is framed, inherited, and internalized. She uses corsets, beads, thread, and autumn leaves and other materials to investigate the tensions that live between freedom and control, adornment and labor, exposure and restraint.

The corset is not a villain or a hero in this work; it is a platform for conversation. She invites her audience to reflect on your own understanding of beauty. Where did it come from? Family, history, media, trends, inherited beliefs? As the women in Threads pull at their corsets, beads begin to surface. For Charlene, beads symbolize care, time, and hidden labor. The act of unraveling the garment becomes a metaphor for questioning history, memory, and the standards we have inherited.

The systems that define beauty shape how we see ourselves and each other. Threads does not provide answers. It sits in the tension and asks: What have we learned about beauty? Whose beauty? Who defines it? Who taught us? At what cost? And what does it cost to unlace it? And, ultimately, what new forms of beauty can we imagine—ones rooted in memory, care, and freedom?