Textiles

Entre Lineas is an ongoing transdisciplinary project that uses traditional rigid heddle loom weaving, stop motion animation and digital editing techniques to create experimental video. The fibers used to create the woven structure are digitally manipulated and replaced with old analog footage along with new captured footage. In replacing the fibers with other footage a new living, moving fiber is created that only exists in digital space. Layering multiple realities, past and present onto a once analog loom structure creates the foundation for the idea that memory is just fragments of moments woven together in our minds. These fragments when looking back, are not clear or defined pictures but composites of what we can recall. In the end the video is a visual representation of those, at times, abstract compositions we form when trying to bring back memories to the surface of present time. 

As a first generation Canadian, who spent their early years In South America, I spent a lot of time contemplating my identity and belonging. Inspiration for the project was born out of the desire to capture the loss of wanting to be in two places at once and the roaming nature of belonging neither here nor there. Learning traditional art and craft from my grandmother when I was very young gave me a direct line of connection to places and people I had for moments called home. After moving back to Canada as a child, in a time where technology was not what it is today, I tried to keep those connections vivid by keeping up with those crafts. As much as I tried to fill that distance with yarns and paint I always felt two steps behind, like I couldn’t quite keep up. That frustration of longing to time travel and being in two different places at once stirred a life long philosophical debate about memory inside my mind. During the last few years while learning to weave the idea of memory flooded back into my mind while working on an animation project and asking myself if I could merge weaving in a digital context and if it were even possible to digitally key out individual strands of yarn. From there I began experimenting with building up fibers and then digitally manipulating them and Entre Lineas was born.

Entre Lineas: Now Then Machine is a continued exploration of the ENTRE LINEAS project that is a transdisciplinary project that uses traditional rigid heddle loom weaving, and live arduino console controlled visual projections to create an interactive art experience. 

Exploring ideas of memory, displacement, migration and belonging the project focuses on breaking the boundaries between artist and spectator to fuel a participatory environment and open up conversation about finding home and refuge in our memories.

Plain weavings in different sizes and shapes are suspended so that videos can be projection mapped onto them and then spectators can control aspects of the video through touching the dials, buttons and sensors on a console. In the background current home footage of the landscapes of Canada play while old analog footage from a childhood in South America is played on the weavings over top.  

This installation plays with the idea that art must not be touched in the confines of a gallery and allows for an intimate dialogue between an artist and audience. Redefining our ideas about what is art, who makes it and its place in the community. 

The project explores being in touch with memory, the past, the present and breaking the boundaries between artist and spectator by letting the spectator touch/control the artist’s intimate memories. Blurring the structures between memory holder and present witness. Bringing physicality to the ethereal realm of the past, the mindscape, the memory while giving solidity to the ephemeral quality of time, and it's fragmented recollection of moments.

Letting others touch the past moments, transforming, changing and playing with them to bring about healing. To reclaim the dark fragments of the past and visit them through the joy of the spectator. 

Reconstructing and weaving the generational trauma into something beautiful with the collaboration of the spectator/witness and in turn aligning place and belonging. 

Weaving present day identity.