Catalina Swinburn

30 September - 25 December 2020
  • Catalina Swinburn (Santiago, 1979) has been working with the geopolitical concept of displacement. Her practice of weaving vintage documents paper sheets as support became a manifest of political disagreement by using documents of displaced patrimonial treasures, or musical scores of operas with exile thematics, or geopolitical maps. Her weaving exercise is trespassing by a diasporic feeling with a poetic and subtle aesthetic. She persues to rescue ancestrals rituals related to sacred places, ancestral geography and  original memory.

  • The starting point of the series of paper works, is an investigation related to displaced archaeological pieces that were taken...

    The Perfect Boundary No.II, 2018/2019

    Woven paper from old maps documentation

    180h x 160w cm

    The starting point of the series of paper works, is an investigation related to displaced archaeological pieces that were taken from their original place, and travelled to different institutions around the world to be exhibited as a power emblem. These skins - with their various folds and contingent aspects - are the place of fissures and traces bearing witness to memory. The process in which Catalina Swinburn creates her interpersonal work emphasises on the human necessity of the conditions of being, loss and destruction.  Regenerating these narratives articulates a sense of urgency and a mode of resistance.

    Maisa Al Qassimi

  • 'Textiles are eloquent expressions of women´s concern with cultural tradition and transmutation, and are recognized as fundamental to studies of...

    Arachne, 2020

    Woven paper investiture from vintage documentacion on silver pieces from Persian, Summer & Assur Empires.

    180h x 150w x 40d cm

    Unique

     

    "Textiles are eloquent expressions of women´s concern with cultural tradition and transmutation,  and are recognized as fundamental to studies of gender, social identity, status, exchange and modernization. Weave, tends to demarcate a suspension of ordinary existance and are among the most visible signs of sacred space and sacred roles. Textiles have played a prominent role in exchanges between the West and indigeous peoples throuhout the world. There is also an essential correspondence between the realms of agriculture and weaving, an isomorphic relationship. There are profund, conceptual, linguistic and religious connections between them two."

    Maisa Al Qassimi

  • "While textile production is rooted in a specific time and place, textiles become objects that function within a system of exchange. The pages from archival books, 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 is transformed into a portable investiture.  Porting a cloak its aluded to both female and male atributes; its a dressing, imposing and ritual piece that acts as and gendered identities on the frontier. The Cloak is also a talisman from harm, keeping one safe and secure throughout transitions."

    Catalina Swinburn

     

    "The interlaced sculptures, process of systematic manual labor, are done to be worn by the artist in performances and becomes a fragile light heavy armour ported over  female sholders as a metaphor of resistance. This woven narratives are regarded as a substitution for a woman’s voice, weaving can portray what words cannot say.

    Weaving is a dynamic activity in literature that has served as a platform for gender ideology. Weaving is a mystery within woman's sphere, an activity symbolic of female expression."

     

  • ' “NAPIR-ASU” is a woven paper investiture made from vintage documentacion on brass and copper archeaological pieces displaced pieces from...

    Napir Asu, 2020

    Performative photo with woven paper investiture from vintage documentacion on brass archeaological displaced pieces from Persian, Summer & Assur Empires.

    180h x 120w cm

     Edition of 5 + 2 AP

    " “NAPIR-ASU” is a woven paper investiture made from vintage documentacion on brass and copper archeaological pieces displaced pieces from Persian, Summer & Assur Empires and belong to a series of works on paper alluded to emblematic women from the classical world.

    Not only do Homer and Ovid challenge the conventional idea of womanly virtue in the classical world, but they recast these women as authors of their own destinies, resisting social pressures, challenging patriarchal and Olympic authority, and defying the expectations of those who would exert control over them."

  • 'Penelope, Philomela, and Arachne define on their own terms how they will respond to their physical circumstances. Wielding a shuttle...

    Penelope, 2020

    Performative photo with woven investiture penelope with scores of Il Ritorno di Ulisse in patria, 1640 by Claudio Monteverdi

    180h x 120w cm

    Edition of 5 + 2AP

     

    "Penelope, Philomela, and Arachne define on their own terms how they will respond to their physical circumstances. Wielding a shuttle is not quite like wielding a sword, but by exercising traditional roles in untraditional ways, Homer and Ovid’s female characters still wield extraordinary social power, with profound social consequences.

    By using weaving as a metaphor for resistance, this works on paper bring us closer to our cultural identity and offer an alternative view of the function of art as a vehicle of consciousness by meeting  various forms of knowledge; oppening a dialogue between conservatism and innovation, between continuity and transmutation."

    Justo Pastor Mellado.