FRANCISCA CARVALHOThree Sisters

It happened in Sanganer, Rajasthan, in northwest India, in April 2023. Each one is five meters long by about one and a half meters wide and is made with natural dyes on 100 percent cotton fabric. The measurements are important, because they speak of the place - the worktable in the warehouse workshop of Vikram Joshi, owner of the Rangotri textile factory and a connoisseur of ancient dyeing, as it was (and still is, but sparsely) practiced in various regions of India. This is the second time I’ve rented him a worktable to do what you see here.

Why Three Sisters? More because of the sense of the words (and using the 87/88 cartoons – “Il était une fois ... la vie”) and less for the literary references – Chekhov and Gertrude Stein (though they do exist, underlying the back of the head). There is the literal fact that we have three fabrics (ha! ha!) and that they are familiar to each other - they came from the same place, they share the same elements and materials – natural dyes, vegetable fibers. We have repetition and its failures, interruptions, small differences generating unpredictable abysses in the way of being, as between sisters, “who are not sisters”.

Francisca Carvalho is a visual artist. Her work is based on the handling of symbols (and signs) from different geographies, which she has experienced, assimilated, and digested, translating them into collages, drawings, patterns, texts, paintings, and textiles. Carvalho has a degree in painting, printmaking, and philosophy. She believes in deconstructed craftsmanship, learning curves, experimentation, skill and deskill as forms of shared freedom and self-provocation. Since 2018 she has been carrying out practical research in India on natural dyeing, kalamkari and hand block printing, especially in the regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat.