Sashiko tradition is transmitted from a master and can only be received through practice.
Débora Staiff learned to embroider as a child from her aunt and mother, a loving gesture she explored with dedicated discipline. Her practice is part of her own personal path. Every cross-stitch piece became a meaningful activity with “little stabs” connecting, strengthening, and reinforcing her own experiences, struggles, values, culture, and life.
Staiff redefines a traditional art form that shows the lasting beauty of textile as a medium.
Her works incorporate traditional sashiko patterns with new applications that point out the versatility of this ancient technique. In her Topography and Urban Series, she embroiders invented maps, non-urban landscapes of the soul, and human footprints through inhabited worlds. While her Textures Series is an artistic microscopic of superimposed threads. Stitch on stitch, tone on tone, white on white, and some imperceptible shadows.
As Jen Hewett writes, “Craft and community go hand in hand.” Both are connected by yarn, threads, and overlapping experiences of moving through the world.
Welcome to Débora Staiff's textile landscape!
Artist: Débora Staiff
Curated by: Claudia Lala & Gabriela Jurevicius
Produced/Managed by: Maria Stojicic