Summer Residency
Yto Barrada’s Sewing Exercises (threadless drawing on paper) lists exercises given to apprentice seamstresses in Tangier, designed to teach them how to write lines on a machine before moving on to work on fabric. These lessons recall Friedrich Fröbel’s educational toys as much as — after the artist’s negative inversion – Frank Stella’s Black Paintings (1958−60), shifting their documentary nature to a more ambiguous status. But while Fröbel’s pedagogy is intended to develop autonomy and foster emancipation, what sometimes awaits these young apprentices is more the low-cost labor market, dominated by the large ready-to-wear groups that have relocated their factories to Morocco.
We publish these exercises in the form of posters, a recurring practice of Yto Barrada, winner of the 2022 Queen Sonja Print Award , which rewards the artist for the whole of her printed work.
Practical information:
10 folded posters, open format 46 x 65 cm
Offset printing on Munken Lynx 90g (posters)
and screen printing on Papago Rose 240g (cover)
Limited edition of 120 copies numbered and signed by the artist