CLOTHING - PAPER MASKS 2020
In this new collaboration with Front Line Arts, we resignify our memories and feelings.
We cut our clothes, turn them into pulp and transform them into paper. During this process we found commonalities between the participants, we were able to meet and share our life stories through an artistic and creative path. We read poetry, wrote down our thoughts, reflect and we deconstructed our clothes and ourselves. Afterwards we transformed them to fibers, creating pulp and then paper.
With the paper we made masks. Without words, we showed our pain.
During these workshops we shared our migration stories, though the mask turned out in a different way.
Day 1:
We selected the clothes that were significant to us, we had a special attachment to them and we travelled with them.
We were not necessarily giving the value to the clothing, but to the memories that we were carrying with them. To cut them out in pieces, while sharing your thoughts, is not an easy process. With the scissors in your hand, but your heart in your mind, you go through a process of deconstruction and transformation.
You are not your shirt, you are not your memories. You can transform and become someone different, someone better.
After this tough process, we got hands on creating the pulp. The texture of the clothes are not the same. There is a fusion with the water with which they merge.
You are not there yet.
Day 2:
The transformation is done. What you thought was a t-shirt full of heaviness, now is paper full of lightness. You were able to let go.
The intention of this mask was to follow my story of migration, but it turned out differently. Just a few days before, in Mexico, Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett, a 7 year old, was abducted from school, her body later found wrapped in a plastic bag. This torn me apart.
I translated my fury, my despair, my anger, my sadness into this.