el mar nos obliga a ser (orilla)

the sea forces us to be (shore)

2023

30” x 20”

cotton and wool tapestry hung on a mulberry branch

In his 1977 poem “El Mar,” Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti describes our relationship with the ocean as an obligation. The sea forces us to be shore. This powerful phrase has become a motif in street art in coastal communities in the Southern Cone, and a prominent mural in Viña del Mar, Chile -- where my family lives -- features this refrain. 

In this tapestry, I invoke Benedetti's poetry and the aesthetic of popular, working class textile and street art lettering to repeat a claim central to life along the Pacific Coast: the sea forces us to be shore. As a diasporic Chilean in Los Angeles, the Pacific Ocean has punctuated and structured my life and the lives of my ancestors. In this rendering, the ocean becomes a generative space that makes selves. The Pacific becomes a transnational core, and as shore, we are its periphery. Rather than this centrality being expressed through hegemonic and oppressive geographies, such as those created by the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I use traditional South American weaving methods and materials to show diaspora, flow, and self-making that warps from Alaska to Patagonia. Weft is pulled across in shuttles and ships. This weaving is a new kind of trans-pacific partnership that is plush, ancestral, emergent, and hung on a branch you might row with. 

Exhibited at Mile 44

Los Angeles, CA

February 2024