Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread
Born in Culiacán, Mexico, Teresa Margolles is an artist working with photography, video, sculpture, and performance. She has spent the last two decades exploring socio-political issues related to violent death in Mexico, engaging the sense of loss and sorrow that each assassination leaves on the victim’s family, friends, and community.
Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread expands on the artist’s long exploration of violence through a series of new works involving the unprecedented participation of artist-embroiderers from Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States, all of whom share her concerns about violence, particularly against women. After explaining her vision for the project, Margolles provided each group with a fabric that had been marked through contact with the body of a woman, or in some cases a man, who had suffered a violent death. She invited the embroiderers to create patterns on the fabric as a way to trigger a conversation about the violence and social problems plaguing their respective communities. Some of these conversations were recorded and are included here in a series of videos providing context for the textiles.
Editor: Patrice Giasson
Texts: Moacir dos Anjos, Juanita Bermúdez, Verónica Corchado, Citlali Cruz, Patrice Giasson, and Santiago Olmo. With testimonies by: Kuna Embroiderers (including: the Rosano family), Nicaraguan Embroiderers (including: Yara Naya Faune), Rarámuri community in Ciudad Juarez (including: Rosalinda Guadalajara, Herminia Sandoval), Brazilian Embroiderers (including: Marluce Pedro de Araujo, Maria Gracas Guimares de Lima, Ezilda Rodrigues da Silva, Edinai Maria da Silva, Josefa Helena da Silva, Josilene Maria da Silva, Zumeira Deca da Silva, Rositania da Silva Santos, and Jocileide Benedita de Souza), Harlem Embroiderers associated with the Harlem Needle Arts cultural arts institute (including: Michelle Bishop, Sahara Briscoe, Laura R. Gadson, and Jerry Gant, Guatemalan Embroiderers of the Asociación de Desarrollo de la Mujer K’ak’a Na’ of Santa Catarina Palopó, Guatemal (including: Bonifacia Cocom, Claudia Nimacachi, Estela Tax, Josefina Tuy, Lucy López, Lucrecia Puac, Silvia Menchú, and Yuri López)
Publisher(s): Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College-SUNY
Year: 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9906608-1-1
Format: 9 ¼ x 8 ½ inches, Hardcover, 120 pages, 60 plates
Language: English
- 2015. “Images on Stains: Violence and Creation in Teresa Margolles’s Textiles.” In Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread, ed. Giasson, 10–20. Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum of Art
- 2015. “Walking with Margolles.” In Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread, ed. Giasson, 100–102. Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum of Art
This publication accompanies the exhibition Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread, on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art July 11–October 11, 2015, curated by Patrice Giasson, and organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY. Funding was provided by the Alex Gordon Estate. Additional support has been provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art and by the Purchase College Foundation.