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Title: Un baúl con ropa blanca*
Year: 2024.
Medium: Artist book.
Size: 17.5 x 24.5 cm.
50 pages with text (in Spanish), 50 pages with black and white drawings and 50 pages with colour drawings.
Edition of 200 copies.
Offset printing by Artes Gráficas Rejas (Mérida, Spain).
Fabric-covered hardcover; sewn binding; Munken paper.

ISBN: 978-84-09-56203-9
* English translation: A Chest Filled with White Linen 


WORK



The book Un baúl con ropa blanca contains an essay and one hundred drawings exploring the tradition of the bridal trousseau in Extremadura, Spain. To develop this project, I visited eight towns across the provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz, where I interviewed a total of eighteen women of different ages and social backgrounds who shared the experience of having prepared their trousseau when they were young.

I paid particular attention to the textile pieces—bed linens, garments, tablecloths, and so on—that the interviewees showed me and which, in many cases, had been inherited from their mothers, grandmothers, or aunts. These objects, part of a family legacy, became a means to talk about how romantic relationships were understood at the time, about the expectations girls held for their future, and about how these women perceive the social changes that have taken place over recent decades.

Thus, the essay and the drawings not only document technical aspects of the textiles—such as types of embroidery or domestic methods of fabric production—but also form the narrative of a journey through the geography of Extremadura, in which I recount the stories of the women I was fortunate to meet.

This project was made possible thanks to one of the 2023 Visual Arts Grants awarded by the Regional Government of Extremadura.