Tejido común

Created especially for several spaces in Laguna, a former textile factory active between 1930 and 2015, this collective exhibition takes weaving as its starting point —as a material and symbolic practice— and the chain of metamorphosis that surrounds it.

The yarn begins with a soft white ball that embraces a seed, its fibers are extracted and then combed parallel and twisted, turning on its own axis until it becomes a continuous, flexible and resistant length. Then, pieces of thread are positioned equidistant and parallel, and the interlacing begins in the transverse direction: other threads are knotted and little by little a malleable surface emerges capable of becoming a second epidermis.

Weaving is one of those ancient practices without which we cannot conceive the world. For some nomadic cultures, textiles became a survival tool, through clothing or shelters that regulated the exchanges between the body and the environment. Eventually, before the invention of writing, techniques were developed with which the fabric transcended its primary utility to also become a tool of identity and communication. Today, weaving is a ubiquitous metaphor that goes from language to the body and society: the word text comes from the Latin 'texere', we speak of 'losing the thread' or 'weaving the narrative', but we also use the word weaving to describe cellular and social structures.

The notion of 'us' is another tissue, built of gazes, social norms and conversations. Unlike the thread in the fabric, we cannot be unthreaded from our tangled domains: organisms and people are knots in a fabric of biological and social knots, we are made of forces that pull us from different directions and transform us.

Drawing inspiration from the dynamics of this entanglement, notions of metamorphosis and interconnectedness were central to the exhibition's production process: some artists collaborated with the Laguna community or used original products from the old factory to produce new works, creating new local connections, using on-site resources and recycling material. Some chose the body as a research territory to explore the margins of relationship and negotiation with the environment. While other artists explore new ways of writing collective stories, of living a place or of weaving alliances. The exhibition space places the visitor at the center of an active experience, we are invited to touch, wear, move, read and take shelter in this tangled space of common fabrics.

— Martina Sabbadini, curator

Artists: Antonia Alarcón, Martha Araújo, Artesanas la Resistencia, Fernanda Barreto, Santiago Borja, Madison Bycroft, Celeste, María Cerdá Acebrón, Victor Costales, June Crespo, Bárbara Foulkes, Manuela García, Cecilia Granara, Mauricio Guerrero, Ana Hernández, Carmen Huízar, Iván Krassoievitch, Nuria Montiel, Francesco Pedraglio, Aurora Pellizzi, Christine Rebet, Julia Rometti, Maximiliano Rosiles, Carmen Serratos Chavarría, Domenico Zindato.

The exhibition, part of the Laguna Art week, will be open from February 10 to 13, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.