Working Towards WinningThis jacquard textile was woven on a semi-automated TC2 loom. It was created based on a screenshot from a recording of the 2010 Chopin Competition. The woman depicted is Yulianna Avdeeva during the third stage of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. It was her final performance, just before she was awarded First Prize, becoming only the fourth woman, and the first in 45 years, to do so in the history of the competition, which began in 1927. “Working Towards Winning” is a title drawn from Avdeeva’s own words. Her enlarged and distorted face becomes a marker of the pressure to win continuously. The fractures within narratives of success expose gendered logic, ageism, and the social expectations that demand relentless performance.