Various ceramic petates. Made at EKWC, documented at de Glasfabriek, Schiedam. 2024

During my residency at EKWC, I created large textile impressions on clay to mimic petates, palm-woven carpets that are central to my practice. As pre-colonial objects, petates held everyday and ceremonial roles: used for sitting, eating, giving birth, and wrapping the dead for burial. Following my intuition I brought back several of them back to the Netherlands and began experimenting with their forms. In the Netherlands, these handwoven, natural fiber objects are seen as fragile. I am exploring translating their materiality into locally familiar media, pressing their weaves into clay. The texture awakens the clay's memory and evokes sensations of sitting, gathering, and textured ground. I’ve also created upright, vertical, self-standing forms that recall modern furniture, reflecting on the colonial introduction of chairs and stools in Mexico.