“The Dress” Exhibition in Montecarmelo
- Montecarmelo Cultural Center, Bellavista 0594, Providencia.
- June 10 to 28.
The Austrian visual artist Sigrid Sandker presents her exhibition El Vestido in Chile, a project in which she brought together artisans from Panguipilli so that together they could make an interpretation of a piece of clothing using the ñocha (shrub, whose leaves are used to make ropes). , baskets, hats, among others).
The networks are the center of the exhibition “The Dress”. Using the ancient traditional craft of basket weaving, dresses were represented through sculptures made by hand by a group of women. The process itself, the fact of working together, the creation of connections between the participants are as important in the project as the works of art themselves, turning the photographic, audiovisual record and paintings into another strand of this fabric.
Mapuche, Chilean and European women are the protagonists in this small art project. It could be seen as a role model for successful cooperation of women around the world. Sigrid commented: ‘Women’s rights, justice and social equity can be achieved… if women overcome cultural, geographical, political and social differences to unite for the common cause, which is the desire to live a life without suppression and violence. Women’s networks keep and have kept societies together, guarantee the transmission of information, provide help in emergency cases and provide safe spaces for emotional support.
“The dress” has different attributes and functions, body protection is one of them,” he highlighted.
The exhibition features three different dresses woven in ñocha along with her paintings that deal with themes of clothing and identity and photographs taken by photographer Katherine Jara Plaza, which capture the complicity that was created around the weaving of these garments.
Sobre Sigrid Sandker
“I am an Austrian visual artist who began her path as a painter. I have lived in different countries, always focusing my interest on the origin of the culture of each society,” she explains.
“At some point I realized that painting was not enough for me as a creative form of expression. I learned to work with clay, then weaving came to connect me with one of the oldest expressions in the world and I developed my own form of manifestation by weaving ñocha sculptures.”
She adds that for her “there has always been an important relationship between clothing and humanity, a ‘second skin’, as I like to call it, a clear way of representing ourselves and showing our identity.”
“In making the El Vestido sculptures, four artisans who did not know each other worked. It was a pleasure to see that we grew together, working together broke the ice even faster than expected and created a bond that I can still feel today, some time after the end of the work process,” he concludes.