Photos by Larissa Ambachtsheer
À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay)
Within this project material is approached as a carrier of memory, centring women’s knowledge often absent from dominant narratives.
Travelling with textiles to places connected through a ceramic tradition in which women play a central role, I rub local soils into their surfaces and invite ceramicists to practise their tradition directly on the fabric. Each textile absorbs local clay, gestures and fingerprints, becoming a distinct cloth shaped by the soil and people involved. Together, the textiles form a growing archive of how this knowledge persists across different landscapes and communities.
Ongoing body of work (2024–present), developed with ceramicists in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, on the island of São Tomé, and in Europe. The textile archives shown were created in collaboration with the ceramic community of Rabil, Boa Vista, and ceramicists Isabel Tavares Sanches and Helena Landim from the ceramic community of Trás di Munti, Santiago, Cape Verde. With support from artist Virgínia Fróis; cultural adviser and curator Ricardo Barbosa Vicente; Fablab Lisboa; the Center of Arts and Culture of Sal Rei and the municipalities of Lisbon and Boa Vista.