Silkscreen on cotton velvet with silkscreen embroidery.
250×140 cm
TELETECA as part of Bienal Sur 2023.
Exhibition curated by Constanza Martínez at the Museum of Fashion.
The proposal involved working with patterns reinterpreted by students from the University of Valparaíso, the National University of Tucumán, and FADU, based on a piece by designer and artist
Fridl Loos.
- What is #Teleteca? More than an exhibition, it is a plausible machinery that can be activated by anyone who wishes to do so. It is a production of instant heritage.
#Teleteca involves a series of pieces – documents, garments, accessories – belonging to the heritage collection of the Museum of the History of Fashion, in dialogue with contemporary reinterpretations by artists, designers, design students, and the public. The proposal operates as a device that creates new heritage, triggering the generation of new works. It brings these patterns to new hands, so they can continue telling stories in contemporary productions.
About my work exhibited in the show:
The curatorial proposal is a journey through time where Fridl calls on me to collaborate.
Her patterns and my images merge to create this piece.
The elements of an embroidered obi made with silk threads fragment when converted into individual patterns. I redraw the patterns because, as always in my handcrafted work, there is a vital need to do it by hand. And thus, they begin to break free from their rigidity.
It is here that the cane branches seem to take on another connotation, approaching a geometric structure that refers to Art Deco architecture. Perhaps to the architecture of that building on Alem Street that Fridl glimpses from the boat that brings her from Europe and (from the port of Buenos Aires) decides will one day be her home. I like to think that it is from that first sighting of her new home that Fridl begins to break away from her roots to open herself to the richness of Argentine culture, with which she would later create innovative designs and dialogues between territories.
I incorporate the fish into this work in collaboration with her, thinking about what Fridl begins to observe in the port city of Mar del Plata. The water, the fishing nets, and the boats begin to become the elements of her photographic works. It is there that I approach her, in that contemplation of the water and its vastness.
The patterns of this tight and small obi explode and merge with the fish leaping from the sea; the cane branches explode and transform into a house.
This city, where she decided to stay for long periods, was the inspiration for numerous photographic works created with Anne Marie Heinrich, among other prominent female photographers.
Logs, nets, and fishing cages became the central elements of her (scenographic) productions, which seem to have an anachronistic contemporaneity.
The softness of the silk is also reinterpreted in rough and harsh textures that build a screen-printed embroidery.
Velvet, which evokes Europe, and the Obi, which evokes the East, are the starting point for a mix of cultures that would later be enriched by the incorporation of designs from Northwest Argentina, resulting in the iconic pieces of Fridl Loos.
Work created based on the breakdown of patterns reinterpreted by students from the University of Valparaíso, the National University of Tucumán, and FADU.
July, 2023.