Knotty Landscape

This installation featured abstract and figurative fiber sculptures to build a magical landscape of river and mountain spirits. I tore and reconfigured reclaimed bedsheets, tablecloths, old clothes and curtains to create these forms. Living in a cultural in-between, this work sought to unearth spirituality through repetitive rituals anchored in the meditative and spiritual power of nature.

I’m inspired by actual landscapes, especially those associated with bodies of water, but also by gender politics, using laborious processes to reference the invisible labor expected of women throughout the centuries in the domestic ambit. By referencing the syncretizing of religious and cultural beliefs, as well as Spanish and Afro-Cuban culture in my work, I deal with the intricacies of the building and development of my own character as a product of colonization and transculturation. The work draws inspiration from altars to Oshún, river deity in Yoruba culture, Yemayá, goddess of the ocean, and certain apparitions of the Virgin Mary, particularly as Mary Undoer of Knots. I find this creative process to be a meditative dance of making and building, using art and craft and their history to continue a conversation about otherness, spirituality, feminism and the global south.