Mateo López Vaina, 2020 Curved panels, Yaré weave, wood Work: 200 x 94 x 94 cm
Vaina refers to the Spanish word for a vegetable pod. In Colombian slang it is also used to refer to things without a proper name; a thing or an issue. It further refers to a vanilla pod and I believe this is where this origin of the word comes from, i.e. vainilla (vanilla) in Spanish.
The work is the result of collaboration with a Rattan and Yare weaver in San Felipe, my local neighborhood in Bogotá. During lockdown, I visited his shop and was amazed with the craft and the potential of the material. We then started doing prototypes. It also became a process of learning weaving techniques and creating round shapes, as my work is usually flat and the way I draw usually incorporates Cartesian principles. With these sculptural works, I am thinking about architecture and considering other concepts such as transparency, weight, temporality and mobility. The functionality of this piece is very simple: you can get inside the cylinder, close it, just breath, hum, whistle and lastly isolate - which is the new norm.
- Mateo López, 2020.
