Anna Nunes van den Hoven

Travelling with textiles to places connected through a ceramic tradition in which women play a central role, I rub local soils into their surfaces and invite ceramicists to practise their tradition directly on the fabric. Each textile absorbs local clay, gestures and fingerprints, becoming a distinct cloth shaped by the soil and people involved. Together, the textiles form a growing archive of how this knowledge persists across different landscapes and communities.

Within this project material is approached as a carrier of memory, centring women’s knowledge often absent from dominant narratives. Travelling with textiles to places connected through a ceramic tradition in which women play a central role, I rub local soils into their surfaces and invite ceramicists to practise their tradition directly on the fabric. Each textile absorbs local clay, gestures and fingerprints, becoming a distinct cloth shaped by the soil and people involved. Together, the textiles form a growing archive of how this knowledge persists across different landscapes and communities.

In response to Cape Verdean community members’ wish to practise their ceramic tradition again during celebrations marking fifty years of Cape Verdean independence, a ceramicist travelled from Cape Verde to the Netherlands. With his guidance, the tradition was remembered and collectively resumed. Those involved included community members who were among the first Cape Verdeans to settle in the Netherlands seventy-five years ago. As part of À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay), textiles served as the surface on which all ceramic processes took place. Clay from Dutch soil was worked directly on the fabric according to the Cape Verdean tradition, in which women play a central role in its practice and continuity. Traces of clay, earth pigments and imprints left by those involved accumulated on the textiles, forming a material archive that makes visible how the tradition is remembered and continued within the Cape Verdean diaspora in the Netherlands.

In response to Cape Verdean community members’ wish to practise their ceramic tradition again during celebrations marking fifty years of Cape Verdean independence, a ceramicist travelled from Cape Verde to the Netherlands. With his guidance, the tradition was remembered and collectively resumed. Those involved included community members who were among the first Cape Verdeans to settle in the Netherlands seventy-five years ago. As part of À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay), textiles served as the surface on which all ceramic processes took place. Clay from Dutch soil was worked directly on the fabric according to the Cape Verdean tradition, in which women play a central role in its practice and continuity. Traces of clay, earth pigments and imprints left by those involved accumulated on the textiles, forming a material archive that makes visible how the tradition is remembered and continued within the Cape Verdean diaspora in the Netherlands.

Developed in collaboration with ceramicists Alcides Morais and Isabel Sanches and with diasporic communities in Loulé, Lisbon and Rotterdam.

In collaboration with Isabel Sanches and diasporic communities in Loulé and Lisbon.

Developed in collaboration with ceramicists Alcides Morais and Isabel Sanches and with diasporic communities in Loulé, Lisbon and Rotterdam.

The figures are cast in plaster mixed with cacao, coffee and indigo in quantities that cause them to fracture. These materials carry histories of colonial plantations, where land was depleted and cultural and ecological knowledge disrupted, with particular consequences for women’s lives. The fractured figures embody the vulnerability of women and land under colonialism.