An interview with Maria Jalil

By Luz Hitters

“My works in general have neither title nor signature. They are all pieces of a narrative puzzle, in a magical realism mode.”

This is how the Argentine artist, Maria Jalil (Catamarca, 1961) responds, after asking her about her work. From her studio in Buenos Aires, in the Recoleta neighbourhood, we had the honor of interviewing her during this lockdown. She tells us about her career, her influences and the stories she weaves with her embroidery.

What is the relationship of your work with the concept of memory, remembrance and ancestors? Is it influenced by your family stories?

My relationship with textiles comes from my childhood. There I learned that powerful images can be achieved with a simple stitch, but the passage of time nurtured the link with those ancient women who were engaged in spinning, weaving, or embroidery. It is a workplace where I feel comfortable, and I think the freedom of choice that I had at home helped me a lot. I grew up surrounded by my mother's positive energy. She trusted me, and in my creative process, and already in primary school embroidery teachers had given me a profession for life, and from there sewing and collage were my tool and my language. Textiles in all their forms have caught my attention for as long as I can remember, be it utilitarian or decorative, historical or contemporary, adorned or stripped, from a sheep's fabric to the most luxurious of silks. They connect me with my origin, with my northern blood, and they are archaeological ties that, without being noticed, keep me tied to the earth.

We can see a predominant intergenerational portrait of women in your work. What inspires these stories?

In my mind there are many different temporalities. Depending on the moment, I need to think like a primitive woman, like a modern woman, or like a postmodern woman. Sometimes I think of all of them together, and other times I put myself in the shoes of my grandmother and stay there. I am very interested in the gaze of all the women who cross me, and somehow I am accompanied by them. They help me keep the little strand growing with me in all directions. I want to play with both tradition and new times, and in my search for portraits I went through Art History but also through my own family photos. Different interpreters of the same story.

You use various media in your work, from old photographs to objects that you rescue and use. However, your work is interconnected through embroidery. Why do you use thread as a medium? Is there a conscious dialogue between traditional practice and the questioning of the status quo through it?

I felt embroidery was a perfect medium. As for textiles, I am generally inspired by using ingrained materials and techniques such as thread and needle to produce innovative, or non-traditional, works. I like to experiment with new materials looking for a style of my own. The learning of the embroidery language is constant, and even in repetition the trace is sought by force of trial and error. In the work I try to maintain a popular aesthetic through intuition and a naive line, of course the final result hides the complexities that ensure interest in the other's gaze. I'm not really interested in breaking with the status quo, because that's what time and its sentence are for.

Your work, in addition to the final result of embroidery, could also be described as a performance. Can you tell us about the process behind the final result?

I believe that a ritual ends up being a performance when it uses interdisciplinary actions, and when there is a clear relationship between the performer and the public. I play with the ritual and altars of daily life, looking for the staging but not the instantaneous dialogue. My embroideries are narrative, and each one is like the small piece of a puzzle conceived not sequentially but randomly, whimsically. I am interested in that minimal chaos that installs the desire to continue to complete the task, although without knowing if what I seek is the first or the last. This pushes the threads in many directions with the same goal.

On previous occasions you have told me that your work has no title or signature, that they are all pieces of a narrative puzzle in magical realism mode. How does literature influence your work?

By opening small doors, literature ends up opening heads, and I feel that a more complex look allows me to summarize much better. In my case, reading also helped to release sensitivity, to expose it. I'm usually trying to figure out how I fit into the world, and I pretend to know about it before asking the world what it thinks of me. Music, mythology, science fiction, fantasy, comics or cartoons are nothing but dreams, games that help growth. When starting a work I imagine a direction and even an end, but the paths are arbitrary. The initial thought is usually fed by my personal story, where the stimuli and the voices are known. Influences mean inspiration to me.

What have you read lately that you recommend?

Yuval Noah Harari, 21 lessons for the 21st Century

Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time

Georges Didi Huberman, Ex-Voto: Image, Organ, Time

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Olga ToKarczuk, Flights

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale