TRIAD

• TRIAD, in collaboration with Arthill Gallery presents ‘Weaving Geographies’, an exhibition showcasing the work of artists Sylvia Denburg (Guatemala) and Monika Bravo (Colombia). These new works are on display in the UK for the first time

• The exhibition explores the symbolical healing process of weaving that unifies indigenous regional communities in South America

• ‘Weaving Geographies’ aims to spark debate around how social, political and gender issues are presented via moving image work and through the prism of being a woman

• The exhibition launches at Arthill Gallery, Ground Floor, Lourdes Apartments (Church Building) North End Road W14 9NU on 29 September 2016.

• A Q&A with Guatemalan artist Sylvia Denburg, TRIAD Director Mariateresa Setaro and Cecilia Santamaria de Orive, Cultural Attaché for the Guatemalan and South American Embassies, will take place on 29 September

• For further information and images, please contact esther.saunders-deutsch@kallaway.com

TRIAD presents Weaving Geographies, an exhibition focused on the traditional practice of weaving. Through the creative work of indigenous South American women, weaving transforms into a healing process and a symbolic thread that unifies regional communities suffering from political conflict and geographical rivalry.

The show explores the link between nature and community through the works of Guatemalan artist Sylvia Denburg and Colombian artist Monika Bravo, two internationally acclaimed female South American artists who work with the process of weaving to explore different topics such as politics, conflict, society, intimacy and nature. This is the first time that these works have been exhibited in the UK.

Sylvia Denburg’s tapestry is a rich and colourful representation of an aerial view of regions in Guatemala where ethnic identity and conflict remain embedded within class and race-based geopolitics. Denburg’s work explores the psychology of conflict and the subsequent liberation of indigenous women and the healing process that creating these meaningful textiles and tapestries can foster. Her community-based work with populations most deeply affected by social inequality and the consequences of conflict, explores how artistic practice can aid individual and collective development within the context of social change.

Since the colonisation of Guatemala, women have taken on the role of artisans using weaving as a form of personal expression. Traditional skirts have been worn by indigenous women in many regions of Guatemala and have served to distinguish both their communities and geographical regions. Denburg’s aim is to create a body of work exploring how indigenous women who have been widowed as a direct result of the Guatemalan armed conflict, are able to maintain their independence and continue working from the security of their own homes.

Monika Bravo presents Urumu Weaving Time (2014), a video installation that aims to envelop the viewer in textile. Shown intermittently across three walls, ‘threads’ shoot up and down the screen to create a virtual warp. At the same time, and following the same irregular rhythm, weft ‘threads’ move from left to right, creating a virtual weave across the screens. The resulting graphic ‘woven’ image appears to contain text written in an unknown foreign language. As the weaving process continues, the graphic pattern slowly fades into a video that reveals the view of an undetermined location devoid of any human faces.

Bravo intends for the meaning of the virtual weaving to vary depending on the viewer. For people who grew up outside of Colombia, the patterns created might seem like abstract designs that possibly recall the graphic motifs of an indigenous South

American culture. For many Colombians they will evoke mochilas arhuacas, the Arhuaco bags that are ubiquitous throughout the country and make popular tourist souvenirs. However for the Arhuaco people who inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region, the textiles play a significant practical and symbolic role. Each motif has a very specific meaning with each element symbolising a fundamental idea about their culture. In the Sierra Nevada, the area in which the Arhuaco live, the community has been able to preserve their ancient rituals and traditions despite their tense and tenuous dialogue with the modern world.

About the Artists

Sylvia Denburg

Sylvia Denburg is textile artist who lives and resides in Guatemala City.
She has established her own language in textile art; which includes using recycled indigenous skirts as part of her tapestries, which are sewn together using different fabric and leather scraps. These tapestries create a dialogue between women who can voice their stories; each village has its own dialect, therefore our Guatemala is divided. Through abstract representation you can differentiate through color and texture the language they are speaking, which often appears in the female context of every day weaving and their garments. The colors speak of a common thread in our abundant flora and fauna. Our holy lands. These tapestries unite all differences and in strength unite as one voice, vibrating in the multiple colors Guatemala is.

Monika Bravo

Monika Bravo is a multi-displinary artist born in Bogotá, Colombia. She studied fashion design in Rome & Paris and Photography in London and NYC. In 1994, she relocated to NYC to pursue a career in the arts.

Bravo has just won a public commission for the New York subway and is currently installing her newly commissioned photogaraphic work for the Urgent Care Centre at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Her work has been shown at Sternesen Museum, Oslo, Museo de Arte, Banco de la Republica, Bogota, Colombia, Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Seoul International Biennial of New Media Art, SITE Santa Fe; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Caja CAB de Burgos, Spain, El Museo del Barrio, and New Museum in NY. Her videos have been screened at MOMA, Anthology Film Archives, Brooklyn Museum, New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kitchen, Museo di Arte Contemporaneo di Roma, the New York video festival at the Lincoln Center & the Americas Society in NY, L.A MOCA, Tate Britain, Museo Reina.

She has been the recipient of Longwood Digital Matrix Commission, Bronx Council on the Arts, the Art Scope Miami Emergent Artist awards in 2002 and 2005 and NYSCA’s Electronic Media & Film Award; She has lectured at Santa Fe Art Institute, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Lannan Foundation and Site Santa Fe among others; she has also been selected to participate in 2001‘s LMCC’s WTC World Views, the Santa Fe Art Institute & 2003 ART OMI Artist-in-Residency Programs. Her work has been reviewed by The New York Times, Art Nexus, Art in America, The New Yorker.

About Arthill Gallery

ARTHILL GALLERY opened the London space in West Kensington this September with inaugural exhibition of Chinese Contemporary artist Shi Rongqiang. INK:SPEAK! on until 30th November. Arthill Gallery exhibits Asian alongside European Contemporary art by established as well as emerging artists. Through its programme the gallery aims to encourage and create an artistic dialogue between the different countries and cultures, offering lectures, artist talks and events.