Five Spells and a Song, 2023

In search of invisibilized cartographies, Mercedes Azpilicueta looks at the migratory movement and establishment of the Korean community in Buenos Aires and their significant role in the development of the local textile industry from the late 60s on. What followed for the next 2-3 decades, was a progressive growth of an enclaved community that strongly shaped the locally produced garment economy of the city at that time. A city within a city, as much as a garment within a garment, travels back and forth in time to retell their stories across generations, financial crises and religious configurations. Women have been in the central role of it, stitching and unstitching while signing, supporting and organising.

Such histories of migration and the construction of communities and displaced identities manifest in a series of soft sculptures, composed of garments produced by Korean family businesses in Buenos Aires’ Koreatown, Koreatown, and in the newly commissioned sound piece Una canción coreana [A Korean Song]. Amid this dreamlike atmosphere, textures and colours unite territories, languages, and personal nar- ratives that speak to the fluidity of boundaries and identities in opposition to fixed notions of nationality and territory.