Antonio Pichilla and Maureen Gruben

Description of the exhibition

Antonio Pichillá weaves the landscape with his entire being. Each strand of his textile pieces is shaped by meticulously precise and considerate gestures rooted in Tz’utujil culture, passed down from generations of women including his mother. Deconstructing and reconstructing traditional textile practices while challenging Western modes of production, conservation, and extraction, Pichillá uses a range of tools, including a backstrap loom, to mobilize his embodied knowledge.

Pichillá’s installation revolves around the landscapes of Lake Atitlán, where he lives. Populating the area are numerous Espantapájaros (Scarecrows): colourfully patterned weavings wrapped around found sticks that offer a tribute to the agricultural land and numerous fields that he encounters. The Abuela (Grandmother) series celebrates the matriarchs who have transmitted weaving traditions—the physical, mental, and spiritual backbone of their culture. Arqueologia Contemporanea (Contemporary Archaeology), an installation composed of numerous rocks covered in woven fabric, extends the notion of textiles and their organic potential as living beings. Conceptually repurposing what Pichillá describes as “kidnapped rocks” from Western museums, he dresses them so that they become people in their own right.

In two video performances, Pichillá brings life, movement, and choreographic texture to these ideas as he demonstrates the process of weaving the land and water with his body. Tejiendo el paisaje (Weaving the Landscape) (2020) captures him in Lake Atitlán, while in Cordon umbilical (Umbilical Cord) (2021) he is tethered to a tree in the forest, using it as an anchor point for his pattern making. From the waters of Central America to the Arctic community of Tuktuyaaqtuuq, these performances are juxtaposed with Inuvialik artist Maureen Gruben’s Stitching My Landscape (2017), an action consisting of connecting one hundred and eleven ice-fishing holes with three hundred metres of red broadcloth. The video captures the physicality of rolling fabric from portal to portal, an act of endurance and devotion that parallels subsistence hunting, and creates a lingering trace, a performance score, and even a mended scar in and on the landscape.

Courtesy of the Cooper Cole Gallery.
Shown in partnership with the Centre Materia.

Artists' biographies

Antonio Pichilla

(Born in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala – Lives in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala)

Antonio Pichilla’s practice is rooted in the landscape and in connecting the ancestral past with the present. He explores the Westernized vision of “abstraction and ancestral textile traditions” that emerged from his Mayan origins. His work has been exhibited around the world and is in the collections of the Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), the Tate Modern (London), the Kadist Art Foundation (San Francisco), and the Luiz Chrysóstomo Collection (Rio de Janeiro).

MAUREEN GRUBEN

(Born and lives in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada)

Maureen Gruben is an Inuvialuk artist who often incorporates organic and industrial materials salvaged from the Arctic, where she lives, into her multidisciplinary practice. Through her work, she draws links between the land and the communities that inhabit it, often exploring notions of environmentalism, the thawing of permafrost, and Indigenous hunting rights. Her work has been shown across Canada and internationally and is in many museum collections in Canada.