Robb Tyler, Cultural Threads Creator 2025

At 48 years old,
I find myself
unbecoming to
become, again.
This is a survey and refitting of
the myths and cyphers I was wrapped in
while growing up as the 4th generation
of my family to live in Arizona.
The shirt is covered in William Shakespeare’s works,
specifically the anthology my high school girlfriend
gave me when I declared I was a writer.
It’s never fit me well as a book or a shirt…
The arms are covered in
my own hastily scrawled poetry
rising through the ill-fit layer.
The breast plate is made from
the flotsam and jetsam I have collected
over the decades of wandering
the desert I’ve always loved,
a scaffolding of nature from which I have
always drawn strength and a sense of self.
The boots are an homage to Tom Bombadil,
the closest thing to an inherited Trickster figure
I can claim — a cypher of my aspiration
to be in this world but not of it
while still being in service to it.
The hat is a decoupage of 1961 Arizona Highways.
It’s the idealized, abstracted, white-washed Arizona
of my inheritance. You’ll notice it doesn’t fit me very well.
And so, here I am,
unbecoming to
become,
again.

All photography by Bernd Geh
To learn more about Cultural Threads, please follow the links below:
Cultural Threads: Fashion and Identity
Cultural Threads 2024: Online Exhibition
Cultural Threads 2025 Online Exhibition
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A heartfelt thank you to our collaborators, funders and sponsors for helping us to realize these projects in full.