In search of a language: poetry and weaving
2021 – on going project
In latin, the verb texere means both to weave and to write. It gave text and textile, texto y tejido, texto e tecido, texte et textile. Weaving is writing, as much as writing is a form of weaving. Sheila Hicks has shown it well throughout her work.
I have always struggled with words. Most of the time, writing feels like a torment to me. Yet, I am an avid reader, particularly drawn to poetry. Perhaps I turned to weaving as an alternative to writing, in search of my own language.
What is certain is that, much like a writer, the textiles that I weave are imbued with memories. I think that those memories are responsible for the emotions that the weaves can convey. Sometimes, it comes with an overwhelming feeling of urgency: I weave because I need to, in that moment I feel compelled to weave about something that touches me, that I need to express. In this aspect, weaving closely mirrors the act of writing. Through my own language of printed photographs, texts, poems, words, abstract landscapes, I write.
During the pandemic, I weaved works that I conceived as fragments. I had time to revisit some of my favorite authors – Marguerite Duras, Roland Barthes, Chantal Akerman, Philippe Jaccottet. I worked intuitively with words, I tried to use them to weave in emotions, my emotions. I printed fragments of poems. In this period of covid, I think that we all needed love and support. On my hand, it was a complete void. So I clung to what was with me at the time: books.
« The words waver between semantics and the essentially abstract visual material of the weave »
Olivier Berggruen in Marie Hazard (Monograph), Zolo Press, Mexico City, 2022.
Exhibitions views from:
Rendez-vous, Galerie Mitterrand
June 2021
Paris
Stellatundra, Sim Smith
November 2023
London, UK
