In her work Fissures as Metaphors of Resistance (2019) Catalina Swinburn tears out the pages of an archaeology book containing reproductions of destroyed and/or displaced historical sites. Swinburn reconstructs the pages by folding them together in an attempt to repair what has been destroyed. In this way, the sculpture becomes a monument that revolutionises its own history and makes reference to changes in time and place. The pages torn out, folded and converted into coded messages, predetermined for that function by the fold, define the line that establishes the scope of an enigma.  This is how origami recomposes the ruins of the book and recovers them through an unthinkable function, as a unique element of a new object: a shawl, a cloak, a blanket. Through the presentation and representation of these images, the artist explores the problems and consequences of the loss of national identity in these states and highlights the moment of cultural catastrophe, “because the destruction of a book is equivalent to the demolition of a building”, as described by Justo Pastor Mellado in his text on the artist “Rituals of Identity”. The creative process of Catalina Swinburn’s interpersonal work focuses on the human need for conditions of existence, loss and destruction. The regeneration of these narratives expresses a sense of urgency and a mode of resistance just like archaeological findings of a forced present to be acknowledged as the remains of a broken memory that is revealed in the subterranean fabric of power.

FISSURES AS METAPHORS OF RESISTANCE (diptych)

Woven paper tapestries from vintage documents on displaced archaeological stone pieces from Persepolis.
150 cm high x 180 cm wide x 10 cm deep each
2019