Myriam Gras

Residence period: February 2019
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Myriam has been inspired by the richness of the history of carpet production in the local area, exploring this process and its wider implications in detail. She began her research using the carpet catalogues from Blanca’s former factories which displayed the designs and patterns of the carpets created by hand in Blanca and exported all over the world.

Reaching into these designs, she extracted elements to create a carpet pattern, which becomes a canvas for her psychedelic colours and rich symbolism that represents aspects of industrial production. Tyre tracks, oil slicks and fossils all intersect in the stripes of the carpet, suggesting the carpet’s connection to literal deeper layers in the ground underfoot and inviting consideration of the many chains of consequences and wide impacts of industry on the environment.

Working the long hours of a factory worker, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in order to make the carpet, she also investigates labour and productivity. She continues to perform her work, the carpet presented in an industrial wooden frame, the labour process intersecting domestic and industrial production, a division which has traditionally followed the gender divide. Through the process of her labour she considers the relationship between gender equality, industry and productivity and environmental impact.