Experimental screen printing on cotton velvet with screen-printed embroidery.
240×400 cm
2023

It was interesting to be invited to create the curtains for the fitting room of the new Curatoria store, a space that symbolizes the coexistence of diverse ancestral and contemporary techniques aimed at creating a social impact through design. In this challenge, I played with transitioning from organic to geometric, and then letting the geometric become organic, generating novel and unexpected results.

Entering the store feels like an archaeological expedition, where we step into a cave that seems infinite. Its walls are overtaken by this fine selection of unique pieces made with multiple techniques, colors, and artisanal tools, which we can relate to the pictorial representations of cave art found on the walls of prehistoric caves.

Inside this cave, I imagined a textile that, when scraped, would reveal different stones in the shape of Guarda del Cacique, the quintessential symbol of the Mapuche culture and later the rural gaucho. Through multiple experiments in both morphologies and various materials, this luxurious textile is filled with fragments of different stones, ceramics, pots, gold, bronze, and earth. The endless Guardas del Cacique are embedded beneath the velvet, like stones that adhere to it, creating a unique coexistence.

Just as no stone in the world is the same as another, no Guarda del Cacique in this work is the same as another.

The fitting room functions as a hideaway where those who visit it find themselves enveloped in this velvet, invaded by stones that allude to the earth, our territory, and our origins.

Work created in collaboration with Maria Rosa Parga.

November, 2023.