The loom of forgetfulness and the metaphor of embroidery. Relational art from an intergenerational and gender perspective

Abstract

An experience of relational and intergenerational art is introduced through the metaphor of embroidery. This experience builds affective bridges connecting past and present through the emotional memory and the representation of the recollection. This meeting defines a story created by means of short tales that arise from the female voice, thought and testimony (grandmother-granddaughter, mother-daughter and sister-sister), as their biographies are interwoven in the time they share looking after a loved one who suffers from Alzheimer. The symbolic activity of embroidering together, an intimate communicative act, mediated by the word, the silence, the way of looking, the listening and touch, facilitates the reconstruction of an identity diluted by the disease, which gets a new meaning in each object, place, person and social behavior.

As in the weave of life, the threads that are woven together facilitate a bond and a permanence in a shared story in which one can settle in the fabric of Being, threading names, thoughts, emotions and events that define us in relation with the Other and in the otherness. Beyond the cognitive stimulation, the artistic action of embroidering shows the symbolic universe of knowledge and the meanings of caring and being cared for.