Almidonar, planchar, doblar

Abstract

Although I constantly directed my attention to the woman, to the feminine, it took me a while to realize that what interested me was the everyday and family space surrounded mostly by women. A space that becomes here autobiographical and personal, that originates, from a daily custom known as starch, which consists of applying a substance called starch to the shirts, then ironing the necks and cuffs in order to keep them stoned. Although, the subject, based on my particular experience, a series of questions arise that make me rethink the meaning of home; of the family; of the everyday. What does a repetitive and daily action tell us? How to account for it, if part of a personal experience? How can a routine element be a container of meanings and allow us to recognize part of our history in it? Thus, as my proposal acquires an emotional sense, an affective element that tries to represent a domestic action that, more than a habitual action, has become, for me, an element of communication, of bond. It is possible that this practice is not present today, in addition, it is no longer functional, it is not necessary. Why starch? Why iron? However, I believe that my intention is to show a domestic work that many people do not even know existed and, perhaps, still exists; and that far from being a practice carried out many years ago and remembered only by grandmothers or by some of our mothers, it revealed, more than a domestic action, an inherited knowledge, hiding behind the repetition and dedication, a sense of closeness, of patience ; an emotional connection between the daily work of a housewife and her family. Why does our attention turn to these things? Possibly, in principle, for an exclusively aesthetic taste. However, I wonder: why in these things and not in others? Probably because they have become part of our environment, and being repetitive, they do not come to us by chance because we grew up and lived with them and in them. They then become links and vehicles that build our universes and, that over time, although unconsciously, have built a part of who we are. This work is therefore intended to show how a domestic action tells us about behaviors; of ways of thinking; of spaces and elements that adapt and that at the same time are holders of meanings, and in my view, they become, in time, places of refuge, in private, intimate, almost introspective territories that end up as the only resource of communication present in a daily action, such as cooking or ironing.