Tania Candiani

The Confrontadas series, 2023, reproduces, through large embroidered paintings, scenes of clashes between protesters and autoridades. The images are taken from media coverage of demonstrations with women protagonists that have taken place over the last 10 years. These women demonstrators appear in white embroidery over black canvas, and the image of male authority (police, soldier, skinheads, etc.) in black embroidery over the same black canvas. This difference denotes the distinct qualities between the protesters and the male authority – focusing on the former and giving the latter a phantasmagorical presentation.

Confrontadas derives from the Manifestantes series which Candiani began in 2019.
“I started ‘Manifestantes’ a week before the first march of the ‘revolución diamantina’ (a march protesting the rape
of a young girl by police officers in northern Mexico City).
I started thinking about a series of large-scale stitched paintings depicting women in different marches and protests around the world privileging the moment of unison protest – when their voices rise.

Sewing for me is a kind of noisy drawing. These portraits are voices.”
In the series, Tania Candiani portrays protesters in different protests around the world, which she finds in the press. The title of each piece bears the place, date, name or reason for the march and, if applicable, the name of the author of the original photograph. The series is therefore a newspaper archive.