To accept and honour our ancestors for taking the place
that corresponds us in life…
Bert Hellinger
I embroidered garments to transform them into a book full of images to illustrate the in- terwoven relationships between my life and my ancestors, joining their destiny which touches me deeply because every one of us is part of a larger ordered and structured group that is our common family system.
Thanks to needle and thread I traced the path to access the family soul and en- tered into contact with ancient and hidden contents in the generational unconscious which I express in the images embroidered with thread no 3047 of Coats brand which names the exhibit. That specific shade of red represents blood flowing from one gen- eration to another: like an infinite river brings life always ahead, as a multiform singular organism that develops unceasing- ly in space/time.
The exhibit is made up of almost sixty pieces put together for the winding installation of white embroidered dresses suspended at different heights from the ceiling, having only one point of contact, so to allow them to sway with the slightest vibration in the surroundings. This display allows them to pause and speak to each oth- er for a short moment and then they turn around and gently interact with someone else or pause with their sight on a far away distance in the future or past, experiencing being protected among blood relatives, companions of the trans-generational jour- ney. I needed to use space to suggest a time line: from the most ancient clothes, which belonged to grand-mothers and great- grand-mothers, to the most recent ones from daughters and grand-daughters to end with a baby garment/seed projected into future and charged with all the potentiality of coming generations.
To anchor subsequently generational time to the actual space of the installation in Textile Museum of Oaxaca, I resolved to give life to the pieces of cloth thanks to a performance that took place the evening of the exhibit opening. The intention of the performance “The Excluded “ was to express, and heal at the same time, con- scious or unconscious exclusion, generated in every family system when some uncom- fortable relative is forgotten due both to his/her behaviour or destiny. I intended to provoque inner experiencies to resonate with performers and public to generate a possible recovery process as an antidote to marginalization that many of our ancestors endured and still reflect in us and will do so in our following generations. To attain this purpose it is essential to watch carefully these people and include them in our hearts and that is what happened in the one hour of the performance with different actions taking place simultaneously on the patio, the stairs and the exhibit hall. Ghostly pres- ences but very concrete were sliding away among the public with total indifference to our time frame, being all of them engrossed in the same net of emotional and affective relationships. They were looking to each other intensely or they were hiding, they were selfcontemplating in the mirror, they were walking blindly or they were dancing fluttering silently until the gradual arise of a sound. All of us present heard a faded vocalizations getting louder and louder as the silence was growing. Only the clicks of the cameras were interrupting for the fraction of a second the enchanted atmosphere en- volving the room: five women and two men, each of them with femenine garments to refer to the soul and mark the irrelevancy of gender when facing the absolute mystery of life showned before our eyes.
No action had been planned… The performance was held by two family constellators, three vipassana meditators, a theater creator and a friend, who experi- mented how to let themselves flow with the pertenance to my family system thanks to wearing HILO ROJO 3047 ́s embroidered cloths. I only gave them some few simple objects –a comb, a lipstick, a scarf, a mir- ror- with the aim to promote some intimate conection between them.
The result was beyond all expecta- tions: everyone experienced a very deep and emotional inner experience. A great connection was generated between all per- formers and the side-effects reached all the public like a stone thrown into water whose healing vibrations spread through the spec- tators reducing exclusion in their family sys- tems. Leaving the exhibition many people shared feeling more connected and lighter than when they came…
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