Single edition
64 x 52 inches
Manchester Cloth, Lugda, Sequins, Fabric Scraps
About the artwork
Considering gender discrimination throughout the course of history, its recognizable that men have received a privileged status and women were relegated to defer to men; however, women were not silenced, they were not verbose with man’s language. Women developed their own rhetoric and revealed in it. This rhetoric is often considered the language of the quilt. The language of a quilt is like a mother tongue, indigenous to women, a tongue which not only relays information, remembers the past, persuades with an argument, but it also reveals the identity of the quilter. I weave quilts with my grandmother Tereza Pinto Lopes as an act to preserve memories; looking at it as a gendered activity; more so like an illustrated method of an individual identity. As an act of communication, it allows sharing our resourcefulness, memories, family, heritage, creativity, past and present. To express ourselves using fabric. To narrate stories. To speak about histories. Thinking of how by involving the same method as my grandmothers grandmother in my art practice, I am engaging in an act of decolonization of the mind, which is rather than allowing the corporate consumerism culture to take over our daily lives, I do have the power to make a protest, to revolt. To also be reminded of how quilting and other crafts could be powerful tools in the fight against fascism and Patriarchy. The ability of women to communicate with one another in code. To Quilt us a story.
About the artist
Saviya Lopes is a visual artist, based in Vasai (Bassein), India. She graduated from Rachna Sansad AFAC, Mumbai and has participated in various group exhibitions in India and across the globe since 2015. She was a participating artist and later the Director at Clark House Initiative, Mumbai
Coming from the community of East Indian Catholics, she often works with her native history, through family archives and oral narratives; drawing upon activities like quilt making by her grandmother as manifestations of dissent. Her work deftly unpicks; reimagines history and reconsiders it for future generations. It never wavers in choosing a visual language to reinterpret what is lost. Her works really speak on a feminist key, intersectional, where subtlety, transparence, delicacy convey stories of violence, of heritage, colonialism. And so much more that there is to think from them.She is passionate about the role of women in relationship to labour and textile histories. Lopes’s artistic practice draws from experiences in the spaces she inhabits. She looks at the body as an active agent of societal protest and symbolic value. Her work shows interest in the inter- relation between body, language, culture and navigation of spaces.
Solo and group exhibitions include an exhibition at Clark House Initiative, Bombay(2016); Dakar Biennale (2016); Historica – Republican Aesthetics at IMMA, Ireland (2016); Stories My country told me, Asia Culture Centre, Gwangju Biennale (2016); Gondwana Series – An intervention at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017); Working Practices, The Showroom, London (2018); The Crown Letter Project, Foundation Fiminco, Paris (2021);Bienalsur, Argentina (2021); “No More Ephemeral Bodies | Solo at Kathiwada City House, Mumbai. She has been twice invited to South Korea for Gwangju Biennale as a fellow to participate and has participated as a visiting speaker at the Asia Art Space, Network Asia, South Korea. She is currently on the curatorial team for the Kochi Students Biennale 2022.
