Born 1979. Santiago, Chile
Lives and works Buenos Aires, Argentina & London, United Kingdom
Catalina Swinburn’s work translates into key messages and universal concerns such as sustainability, identity, gender equality and globalization, underlining the connections of the Global South throughout history. The use of weaving and vintage documents is a vital and dynamic language for raising awareness, both physically and conceptually, while aiming to strengthen the integration between various communities by referencing female resilience. She peruses to rescue ancestral rituals related to sacred places, ancestral geography and original memory. Regenerating these narratives articulates for the artist both a sense of urgency and a mode of resistance. The artwork is therefore activated by the artist’s position as both fabricator and performer of the sculpture. This could be seen as a metaphor for resistance, where woven narratives are portrayed as a substitute for the silence of women throughout history.
Textiles are eloquent expressions of women’s concern with cultural tradition and transmutation, and are recognized as fundamental to studies of gender, social identity, status, exchange and modernization. By using weaving as a metaphor for resistance, her practice brings us closer to our cultural identity and offers an alternative view of the function of art as a vehicle of consciousness by meeting various forms of knowledge, opening a dialogue between conservatism and innovation, between continuity and transmutation.
She received a BA in Fine Arts from the Catholic University of Chile.