The World is a Handkerchief | El mundo es un pañuelo
Impact Press, UWE Bristol, UK, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-906501-14-3
Project concept © Claudia DeMonte & Cecilia Mandrile
Essay © Gill Saunders
Artworks © Individual artists
Printed Edition:300
Handkerchiefs—the foldable, portable, simple squares of cotton—have accompanied people in celebrations and farewells in many cultures for centuries, offered bodily protection and coverage, and sustained expressions of political tenets and spiritual beliefs. In “The World is a Handkerchief,” handkerchiefs become vessels of memories and itinerant narratives; containers of emotions; translators of wounds, signals of ideological resistance. Each piece epitomises a soft space for visual statements, to be carried as a tangible memento. Artists employed printmaking, painting, embroidery, drawing, and collage to capture their wandering, often disappearing recollections of homeland as well as reflections on displacement and identity.