Paula do Prado, “Tejedora” | What Stories–and Histories–Resurface in Her Textile Art? | Contemporary Artist Interviews

sort of mapping... diagrammatic, much bigger works that you either suspend on the space or you hang on the wall.

They seem connected to very specific researches that you make because you're looking into the iconography, I would say, or the symbology or the meaning of these forms that come through you, how does that work and how do you connect both,

if there is a connection to be made? Yes, I'm looking at books, I'm looking at specific texts from all of South America.

i'm looking to our neighbors there's also the junior the genealogy so i do a lot of research on our family history you know um and collating all of that and asking the questions um and then of course you know there is um i think for me having uh migrated at the age of seven um it became clear very early on that if I was not deliberate, if I was not intentional about investigating these lineages, if I did not physically visit and return and immerse myself in the places that, you know, my family have inhabited and that we have histories in, that without that, there would be no real foundation.

And so, you know, for many years, there was a feeling of... you know slightly being untethered and i think for me i was kind of reckoning with well who am i here in australia who am i here you know i miss the histories that are here um and you know what does that mean for me and for my practice um and then thinking about you know when i do return to uruguay and when i am there then thinking about what does it mean to return in this kind of very different mode to be both local, but to be both very foreign.

But for me, what's really has emerged is this sense of responsibility to really honour all the places to really anchor in the spaces, you know, to be hyper-local, you know, to be really intentional about, you know, where I am, what does it mean, what's the history here, but ultimately, yes, to when I return and when to do that research from afar about, well, you know, which places where my ancestors were living? What were the histories? You know, why do we look the way we look? What does it mean to have links to, you know, all these sort of disparate stories? No one was going to

hand me the story, you

know?

Yes, no one.

Yes.

And that's what I'm seeing.

I'm looking at a woman who has a family, who has...

Because...

I think that it's important for people to realize what you mean by visiting all the places and being hyperlocal because you come from Uruguay and then you arrive in Australia and I read or I heard you say somewhere so we flee, my family moves and then I arrive on stolen land You know, I arrived at a place that has, I wouldn't say the same history, but a pattern that is very familiar and paying respect to the ancestors and being very aware of what happened exactly in a place.

Is that how maybe... and you spoke about anchor, and I understand much better why your tool was a form of anchor.

Is that how you manage that responsibility? Because with that responsibility comes a lot of weight and a lot of information, like a lot of told and untold histories and stories.

Yes, most definitely.

And, you know, for me, the question has been, How do you sustainably hold that responsibility? And what's been important for me, I think, especially as a mother, I've got a 13-year-old son.

And I often think about, you know, what's come before me.

And I also look at my dad, who is a singer-songwriter.

And so for me, one really important question has been, how do I hold this responsibility with all the seriousness and with all the know respect um and accountability that it reserves but at the same time how do i hold this with joy how do i hold this in a way that i am you know almost um undergoing a process of of you know kind of lighting what's there because it is really heavy and it is really intense and it's not, you know, there's bits of the research that I couldn't do every day.

These are things that I might dig the genealogical archive every three months or once every now and then.

These are things that need to be balanced.

And so when I say about the hyperlocal aspects of it, even today, before I've sat down to have this conversation with you, I actually came from the beach.

There's a little beach that I visit near my parents' home.