INDEX
Woven paper investiture from vintage atlases gazeeters documentacion
150 cm w x 180 cm h x 40 cm depth
2019
Bordering processes are clearly not just geopolitical lines in sand or on a map. Thus the notion of frontier is inextricably tied to border; when seen as zones of negotiation, contest and integration they provide only a partial image of their function and significance, because they also are tied to notions of land, place, belonging and territory.
While textile production is rooted in a specific time and place, textiles become objects that function within a system of exchange, offerings, travel, gift giving, birth, weddings, and death. Changing circumstances, changing lives, changing places and times all become part of the fabric’s and weaving history.
The main piece; in Catalina Swinburn´s presentation; its a ritual central standing woven paper sculpture that creates a monument that revolutionises its previous history and references the change in their time and place.
The pages from archival books, index of atlases and gazetteers, ripped, folded and transformed into coded messages already destined to such a purpose by the folding , mark the line that determines the scope of an enigma. The weaving thus restructures the ruins of the book to prepare them for an unimaginable role, as the singular components of a new object: a blanket that can be used as a garment or a shroud.
The woven piece transforms the gazetteer of the atlases, into a new comunication code,an alternative lanscape, with new evolving borders and frontiers. The weaving of the shourd becomes a public manifestation of expresion ; a garmet destined for public sight and ritual use. This textile work fluctuates from existence to negation, and vice versa. Approached from different points of view and different theoretical perspectives, this piece highlights a woman’s imagined personal and social experience.