Flowers that grow on my hands textile installation
"Hoje roubei todas as rosas dos jardins e cheguei ao pé de ti de mãos vazias"
"Today I stole all the roses from the gardens and I came to you empty-handed"
Eugénio de Andrade
These verses reflect a delicacy and tenderness that could not be conveyed on a medium such as paper, so I opted to investigate other less conventional options. After a little search, it occurred to me that the embroidery technique would be ideal to represent my vision: it shows this delicacy, affection and care. Then I created a set of images that represented my vision of this poem, with the theme of roses/gardens. I sketched out the idea of zooming in/out as if I was seeing the hand of the narrator under the microscope, more and more in detail. Therefore, one would first see a hand, and in the last image of the sequence was a garden. The idea was to see these images as a narrative that could be seen both in one direction and the other. The embroidery is not two-dimensional in this project, in fact, it is not just embroidery, but a mixed technique, since I include materials outside the spectrum of traditional embroidery, such as paper and netting. Moreover, it is not only to be seen from a point of view, but from any one, for from each image arise the "roots" that pierce the flax and flow through space. Throughout the stairs we are able to see all the facets of this piece.
To complement this installation, I created a video from recordings of the surroundings, along with the music "Song on the beach" by Arcade Fire. I took advantage of transparencies and overlays to enhance the idea of delicacy and movement. Shaping the idea of a garden turning into a hand, the piece seems to breathe, almost as alive. I chose to add images of the space itself: the window, the stairs, the reflections, the trees in the garden, and the rain. I think I have been able to represent and demonstrate the bucolic, dreamlike environment as well, and above all, love.
