Ficus Carita, 2019
119×68 cm
Stitching and painting on fabric dyed with plant extracts
Courtesy of MAC VAL – Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne
Centearea Segetum, 2019
164×100 cm
Stitching and painting on fabric dyed with plant extracts mounted on found tablecloth
Courtesy of MAC VAL – Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne
Series from the MAC VAL Garden: As the roots spoke, the cracks deepen
As part of the exhibition ‘Persona Grata?’ Commissioned and exhibited by the MAC/VAL Val-de-Marne Contemporary Art Museum, Paris, France, 2019.
In 2019, I took part in a one-month residency programme at the MAC/VAL Contemporary Art Museum in Paris, which had previously been used as a nursery. I had the opportunity to work alongside gardeners in community gardens in the Vitry area, where the museum is located. I collected stories about taking root in the soil, as told by gardeners who had brought plants and seeds from different places. I also followed the traces of gardens that had become shared living spaces. I collected plant samples representing the stories of the people who changed the memory of the soil. I embroidered the life strategies and stories of the plants onto fabrics collected from the region. These fabrics and plants helped me to create layers of memory belonging to both humans and the soil. Each piece of fabric in the arrangement represented a plant, and each plant represented life, forming part of the installation titled ‘MAC/VAL Garden’.
LINK: https://gozdeilkin.blogspot.com/2019/10/as-roots-spoke-cracks-deepen-2019.html