My second and final month of residency in Switzerland began with witnessing “The Law of Origin” exhibition at Villa Strauli. Featuring the works of Eveline Cantieni, Camila Rodriguez Triana and Lorena Gutiérrez Camejo. The three artists bring together their subjective practices using a diverse and distinct set of materials. Adhesive bandages, pages from books and newspaper paper, metallic thread, and patchwork fabric: form a symphony of collective narrative of care work and cultural memory; indigenous cosmology and colonial history; and resistance and collective trauma. While each wall of the exhibition space becomes a canvas for an individual artist, their shared and interconnected themes weave an ouroboros-like loop of material and memory. I found myself lost in the epistemological entanglements inherent in the ‘law of origin’ and the ‘origin of law.’
Installation view of Camila Rodriguez Triana’s work, showcasing abstract geometric patterns embroidered using colourful threads on the economics pages of Columbian newspaper symbolising Mhuysqa myths and Spanish colonisation.
Installation view of Klöppelspitze by Eveline Cantieni, it’s weblike assemblage of bandage lacework and the invisible labour of caregiving and domestic labour.
Looking at these artworks helped me find new relational approaches to my own craft as a writer. A writer’s job is widely considered as solitary work, which is true for the most part. Yet, solitude alone cannot sustain a writer. It is a kind of subconscious exchange, or a ‘creative osmosis’, which provides a nurturing environment.
I became more appreciative of this fact, this week in particular, when artists currently in residency at Atelier Mondial visited Villa Strauli for a gathering, including a couple familiar faces from last week’s gathering in Basel. While sitting across artists from Brazil, Canada, Taiwan, Columbia, and Japan who had gathered around one table, sharing presentations based on their ideas, influences, inspirations, beliefs, interests and obsessions that drove each of us, we were partaking in a collective act of ‘reading’ the text of our lives. As a writer formulating my subjective form of creative expression through text and images, this has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the residency.
