2022 – on going project
As a child, my mother used to tell me that I had air under my feet when I walked. It was her way of saying that I looked like I was floating. This expression from my childhood naturally became the title of a series of works that I conceived in a period of intense travel, of floating around across Mexico and Brazil. In 2022, I went to Serra Grande, in the Bahia region. Then I headed to Sao Paulo, and finally, I ended this journey by returning to Mexico City. I was in perpetual motion for three months, with only my disposable cameras and a small frame weaving loom as tools. I went around cities by car and by foot. With my two tools, I started documenting small and prosaic details of everyday urban life, little things that kept coming back and were becoming part of my routine: tires on the side of the road, construction materials, brooms… I brought these small pieces of city life into my weaves, both through printing my black and white photographs, and the use of the same rough urban materials, such as twigs and tires.
In my view, there is a very strong and deep connection between weaving and this Latin American city of prosaic, ordinary details that I tried to capture. Both stand in contrast with the pretences of modernity: whether in Paris (my hometown), Mexico City or Sao Paulo, modernity often imposes its own narratives onto the urban canvas and transform cities accordingly, at an ever more rapid pace. In contrast, weaving stands on the side of those who stay in the shadow, far from the grand projections of modernity. The weaver is aligned with those who stick around and repeat the same, modest and repetitive gestures every day. Alongside street sweepers, vulcanisers, fruit vendors, the weaver belongs to this vast, overlooked community that, both materially and symbolically, keep the urban fabric together. It is an invisible city that one can only be felt, only heard, as it resonates in the echoes of artisanal brooms rubbing against the sidewalks of Mexico City.
Exhibitions views from:
L’air sous mes pieds, Alexander Berggruen
June 2022
New York City
Condo Show, Galeria Mascota
November 2024
Mexico City
