Cecilia Vilela is doing it all over by simply allowing her emotions to carry her away and in the process, showing us her past and her present. The new project, inspired in part by the field of psychogeography, invites us to talk stroll through her life in Sao Paulo, Portugal and finally London, where she has been living for the last few years.
This new project, Constellations, is actually an experiment using her memories and emotions as they come to her to draw maps with stitches on photographs. At first glance they images appear to be imaginary constellations but in reality, Cecilia takes us on a journey from her home in Sao Paulo to the School of Design, then to the cinema, before finally returning home and going back to school. Other images reference moments in the not-so-distant past, when her daily routine took her from her flat in London to the bar she worked in to save up, to the bank, back home and so on. Some even give a glimpse of her life now, at the same time more dynamic and more stable, spending more time at home, from her room to the kitchen and back again, interspersed with much longer journeys. The routines show us a side of Cecilia that is more dedicated than ever to design but with the time, now, to visit art galleries, pubs and parks.
The process requires the artist to do everything by hand, using a needle and thread as her principle tools, along with her memories, and that’s all. Her intention is not to meticulously analyze the realities the images represent but rather the emotion that lingers in her memories.
The result is a series of evocative photographs in black and white on which the hand-stitched map appears as a collection of simple, short straight lines. Some of them represent more routine or even boring periods while others, with crisscrossing lines with complex and varied sequences, representing the busiest and least social times in her life.
Her work is a cryptic representation of the most intimate side of her life, a reflection of her emotions and memories over enigmatic images that, in the end, will always be open to interpretation
You can see more of Cecilia Vilela’s work on Tumblr and follow her on Twitter and Facebook and read the interview she gave So Catchy! Where Fashion Begins about her work here.
Layout and Translation by Michael Padilla
