Corazones Cosidos project
This series finds the artist exploring the nature of emotional pain. She reflects on how we navigate our interior world and the possibility to return to our own emotional suffering for repair.
The project encompasses–– the series Corazón Cosido which includes 25 pigment printed hearts that she shot with a bow and arrows and then mended with thread made with 24k gold; the photograph series Integration; and a series of two videos Viajera I and II. In the photographs and videos, Schafer stands in as an archetype to represent the human journey inevitably touched by sorrows, trauma, and suffering and contemplation on how to create healing within ourselves.
The Corazones Cosidos works are detached from a distinct time or place to reflect the way in which memories of our past sorrows and the pain that remains are amplified times of stillness, and reunite our individual suffering with a human condition that is universal. In this context, Schafer draws focus on the universality of our suffering and presents our own sorrows as a means to feel empathy for the suffering of others.
Schafer’s choice to mend the hearts with thread made of gold intends to convey the idea that beauty exists in darkness and creates a sort of map on each heart tracing the closing of the wounds. This gesture is also a nod to the Japanese art of Kintsugi in which a broken ceramic is repaired with gold and made more beautiful; that when we do heal from an injury, or a trauma, there can be wisdom, experience, or some sort of beauty. And the idea that we are ultimately responsible for our own emotional suffering.
This series finds the artist exploring the nature of emotional pain. She reflects on how we navigate our interior world and the possibility to return to our own emotional suffering for repair.
The project encompasses–– the series Corazón Cosido which includes 25 pigment printed hearts that she shot with a bow and arrows and then mended with thread made with 24k gold; the photograph series Integration; and a series of two videos Viajera I and II. In the photographs and videos, Schafer stands in as an archetype to represent the human journey inevitably touched by sorrows, trauma, and suffering and contemplation on how to create healing within ourselves.
The Corazones Cosidos works are detached from a distinct time or place to reflect the way in which memories of our past sorrows and the pain that remains are amplified times of stillness, and reunite our individual suffering with a human condition that is universal. In this context, Schafer draws focus on the universality of our suffering and presents our own sorrows as a means to feel empathy for the suffering of others.
Schafer’s choice to mend the hearts with thread made of gold intends to convey the idea that beauty exists in darkness and creates a sort of map on each heart tracing the closing of the wounds. This gesture is also a nod to the Japanese art of Kintsugi in which a broken ceramic is repaired with gold and made more beautiful; that when we do heal from an injury, or a trauma, there can be wisdom, experience, or some sort of beauty. And the idea that we are ultimately responsible for our own emotional suffering.
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated... a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin.... Mushin is often literally translated as ‘no mind, [無心].’ but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. ...The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, [things] outside oneself.
—Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything –– anger, anxiety, or possessions –– we cannot be free.
—Thich That Hanh
—Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything –– anger, anxiety, or possessions –– we cannot be free.
—Thich That Hanh
Integration no. 5 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 8 x 12 and 12 x 18 inches
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Integration no. 2 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 8 x 12 and 12 x 18 inches
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Integration no. 4 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 8 x 12 and 12 x 18 inches
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Integration no. 1 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 8 x 12 and 12 x 18 inches
Integration no. 3 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 6 x 9 and 8 x 12 inches
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Integration no. 7 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 6 x 9 and 8 x 12 inches
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Integration no. 6 from the Corazones Cosidos project, 2021. Edition of 5 + 2 A.P., Digital photograph on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin, 6 x 9 and 8 x 12 inches
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Viajera I, 2021 (video still)
from the Corazones Cosidos project. Single-channel video, 30 fps, color with mono sound. Edition of 7 + 2 A.P. 2:50 minutes
Viajera II, 2021 (video still) from the Corazones Cosidos project. Single-channel video, 30 fps, color with mono sound. Edition of 7 + 2 A.P. 3:11 minutes