Francisca Aninat: Thread Stories
‘It’s a very resistant, strong material’, artist Francisca Aninat is describing the everyday fabric used in Chilean markets. We’re outside in the gardens of Murray Edwards College at Artworks & Artists In Context, a conference held in March 2024, at the Women’s Art Collection in Cambridge – the largest collection of women’s art in Europe.
‘It’s very rough, very strong. Often used to hold potatoes. I liked how it had traces of newspaper, in it, too.’
Image: Arpillera 3 by Francisca Aninat. Image above: Material Transit. Fragmented cardboard, newspapers and threads. Variable dimensions. 2009. Credits: Oswaldo Ruiz.
There’s no shortage of inspirational resistance in Arperilla 3, by Francisca Aninat - a mixed media work that’s now part of the Women’s Art Collection, also featured in the exhibition 'What Lies Beneath: Women, Politics, Textiles' (17 February - 28 August 2022), curated by Naomi Polonsky. Inspired by Chilean arpilleristas – makers of arpilleras, hand-stitched textiles, acts of solidarity, activism and resistance largely created by women, under Pinochet’s dictatorship – Arperilla 3 also pays homage to iconic artist Violeta Parra (exhibited at Le Louvre, in 1964) and who was included in The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, at the Barbican, this year. ‘She was a very important figure in our country, especially as she valued our traditions – they were disappearing,’ says Aninat. Activist, musician and known for her mesmerising folk songs, like ‘Gracias a la vida’ – Aninat’s work is similarly charged with a passion for everyday Chilean culture.
‘Where I come from we are used to doing everything ourselves,’ she adds. ‘We try to take advantage of the things around us, do things with everyday objects, so my work is very connected to this idea of the art of the every day.’
In 2006 Aninat was awarded the Chilean government scholarship to complete further study at Central St Martins. Her original approach to painting and contemporary art caught the eye of renowned collector, David Roberts who bought her installation Interior/Exterior Field for his Public Art Museum in Camden.
‘It’s in the boundary of textiles, with thread, but it’s more mixed media art than textiles,’ Aninat says of her art. ‘I wanted to be a painter, to be honest.’
It’s this bold fusion of contemporary art, with a strong culture of handmade skills and participatory arts practice, that makes Aninat’s work stand out. With thread and fabric signature features, challenging and subverting the foundations of painting itself.
‘Aninat’s incorporation of waste materials draws attention to the social history of textiles, which itself shines a light on 'undervalued' materials,’ explains Ella Nixon, Research Associate at the Women’s Art Collection - ‘often overshadowed by traditional art historical narratives which champion the artistic genius and ‘fine art’.’ Narratives surrounding art that have long excluded media, such as fabric, often associated with women, from ideas of artistic genius.
Like a ‘shelter’, in times of rapid change Aninat’s work becomes a poetic way of embedding lost moments. Overlooked voices, threaded. Not just a radical act of care, but also as interdisciplinary language. A way of marking ‘ancestral times’ in Chile, or ‘returning to those lived times’, as described by Valentina Gajardo, in her lecture at Artworks & Artists In Context, at the Women’s Art Collection - Thread Stories: Symptom And Narrative Of Time In The Artwork Of Chilean Artist Francisca Aninat which you can see here.
Fabric is reworked to become a ‘skin’ of canvases, with thread becoming like a brush – stitching comment on huge, pivotal moments of social change as a form of painting. An antidote, almost – to a world rapidly changing – threatened with erasure. Under Pinochet’s twenty years in power, there were more than 3500 deaths and disappearances. And an estimated 200,000 exiled Chileans.
Art produced in response to the dictatorship of this time was by its nature ‘more subtle’, explains Aninat.
‘I was more attached to the things that were happening, like interventions, performances the events, than painting. So, what I did was start fragmenting the canvases, using thread to place it back in. I was thinking about making my artwork as related to experiences, like slow motion, everything was happening so fast,’ she says. ‘I wanted to go out of the studio, into the city, almost like situationists, relate to the experiences that were happening. So that’s why I started working with different communities.’
Image: Detail of Material Transit. Fragmented cardboard, newspapers and threads. Variable dimensions. 2009. Credits: Oswaldo Ruiz.
Aninat's use of participatory practices has led her to connect with a range of communities – from refugees to hospital workers and residents. We see this in her work at San Juan Dios Hospital – a transformative experience that started one ‘cold day’ in May 2011. Making tangible, oral stories and voices that otherwise can become lost – by placing them at the heart of new work – Ejercicios de espera.
‘Some of the pieces are very much driven to be touched – but I never put a glass on top of them, even I when I showed them in the hospital I never had any problems.
‘What I really wanted to be touched were the books, the oral stories I was listening to while doing other projects – people started telling me about what they were doing during political periods. About a boy who died in the hospital, and reappeared elsewhere in the hospital.
‘I wanted to give a voice to the oral stories, not formal stories, how we see them now. One book was on breathing, political period, political differences – there are ten altogether.’
And throughout June, until 27 July 2024, Aninat has her first solo show at Bendana Pinel Art Contemporain, in Paris – ‘Hills in the Distance’. Inspired by a coincidental encounter with an envelope full of photos from the 1940s, Aninat retraces these fragments, connecting the fascinating works – reconstructed, mixed media letters – with red string.
Thread is ‘essential’ in the show, Aninat tells me. ‘As it holds the fragments together, noticing how fragile and subtle these arrangements are. The thread is like handwriting, a metaphor for a unique way of creating an understanding of transitory elements that remain together.’
A reminder of the beauty found in connection, too often overlooked in the everyday. That new direction can happen at any time – from the most surprising of encounters.
Text by Ruthie Collins
Find out more and plan your visit:
www.bendana-pinel.com/en/show/eighty-sixth-show
‘It’s very rough, very strong. Often used to hold potatoes. I liked how it had traces of newspaper, in it, too.’
Image: Arpillera 3 by Francisca Aninat. Image above: Material Transit. Fragmented cardboard, newspapers and threads. Variable dimensions. 2009. Credits: Oswaldo Ruiz.
There’s no shortage of inspirational resistance in Arperilla 3, by Francisca Aninat - a mixed media work that’s now part of the Women’s Art Collection, also featured in the exhibition 'What Lies Beneath: Women, Politics, Textiles' (17 February - 28 August 2022), curated by Naomi Polonsky. Inspired by Chilean arpilleristas – makers of arpilleras, hand-stitched textiles, acts of solidarity, activism and resistance largely created by women, under Pinochet’s dictatorship – Arperilla 3 also pays homage to iconic artist Violeta Parra (exhibited at Le Louvre, in 1964) and who was included in The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, at the Barbican, this year. ‘She was a very important figure in our country, especially as she valued our traditions – they were disappearing,’ says Aninat. Activist, musician and known for her mesmerising folk songs, like ‘Gracias a la vida’ – Aninat’s work is similarly charged with a passion for everyday Chilean culture.
‘Where I come from we are used to doing everything ourselves,’ she adds. ‘We try to take advantage of the things around us, do things with everyday objects, so my work is very connected to this idea of the art of the every day.’
In 2006 Aninat was awarded the Chilean government scholarship to complete further study at Central St Martins. Her original approach to painting and contemporary art caught the eye of renowned collector, David Roberts who bought her installation Interior/Exterior Field for his Public Art Museum in Camden.
‘It’s in the boundary of textiles, with thread, but it’s more mixed media art than textiles,’ Aninat says of her art. ‘I wanted to be a painter, to be honest.’
It’s this bold fusion of contemporary art, with a strong culture of handmade skills and participatory arts practice, that makes Aninat’s work stand out. With thread and fabric signature features, challenging and subverting the foundations of painting itself.
‘Aninat’s incorporation of waste materials draws attention to the social history of textiles, which itself shines a light on 'undervalued' materials,’ explains Ella Nixon, Research Associate at the Women’s Art Collection - ‘often overshadowed by traditional art historical narratives which champion the artistic genius and ‘fine art’.’ Narratives surrounding art that have long excluded media, such as fabric, often associated with women, from ideas of artistic genius.
Like a ‘shelter’, in times of rapid change Aninat’s work becomes a poetic way of embedding lost moments. Overlooked voices, threaded. Not just a radical act of care, but also as interdisciplinary language. A way of marking ‘ancestral times’ in Chile, or ‘returning to those lived times’, as described by Valentina Gajardo, in her lecture at Artworks & Artists In Context, at the Women’s Art Collection - Thread Stories: Symptom And Narrative Of Time In The Artwork Of Chilean Artist Francisca Aninat which you can see here.
Fabric is reworked to become a ‘skin’ of canvases, with thread becoming like a brush – stitching comment on huge, pivotal moments of social change as a form of painting. An antidote, almost – to a world rapidly changing – threatened with erasure. Under Pinochet’s twenty years in power, there were more than 3500 deaths and disappearances. And an estimated 200,000 exiled Chileans.
Art produced in response to the dictatorship of this time was by its nature ‘more subtle’, explains Aninat.
‘I was more attached to the things that were happening, like interventions, performances the events, than painting. So, what I did was start fragmenting the canvases, using thread to place it back in. I was thinking about making my artwork as related to experiences, like slow motion, everything was happening so fast,’ she says. ‘I wanted to go out of the studio, into the city, almost like situationists, relate to the experiences that were happening. So that’s why I started working with different communities.’
Image: Detail of Material Transit. Fragmented cardboard, newspapers and threads. Variable dimensions. 2009. Credits: Oswaldo Ruiz.
Aninat's use of participatory practices has led her to connect with a range of communities – from refugees to hospital workers and residents. We see this in her work at San Juan Dios Hospital – a transformative experience that started one ‘cold day’ in May 2011. Making tangible, oral stories and voices that otherwise can become lost – by placing them at the heart of new work – Ejercicios de espera.
‘Some of the pieces are very much driven to be touched – but I never put a glass on top of them, even I when I showed them in the hospital I never had any problems.
‘What I really wanted to be touched were the books, the oral stories I was listening to while doing other projects – people started telling me about what they were doing during political periods. About a boy who died in the hospital, and reappeared elsewhere in the hospital.
‘I wanted to give a voice to the oral stories, not formal stories, how we see them now. One book was on breathing, political period, political differences – there are ten altogether.’
And throughout June, until 27 July 2024, Aninat has her first solo show at Bendana Pinel Art Contemporain, in Paris – ‘Hills in the Distance’. Inspired by a coincidental encounter with an envelope full of photos from the 1940s, Aninat retraces these fragments, connecting the fascinating works – reconstructed, mixed media letters – with red string.
Thread is ‘essential’ in the show, Aninat tells me. ‘As it holds the fragments together, noticing how fragile and subtle these arrangements are. The thread is like handwriting, a metaphor for a unique way of creating an understanding of transitory elements that remain together.’
A reminder of the beauty found in connection, too often overlooked in the everyday. That new direction can happen at any time – from the most surprising of encounters.
Text by Ruthie Collins
Find out more and plan your visit:
www.bendana-pinel.com/en/show/eighty-sixth-show