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‘The Filaments of a Memory’
Installation
Solo Show at Sarabande Foundation
May 2025
Mystical and deeply connected to nature and the internal essence, hair serves as a force of filaments that whisper, grow, Installation
Solo Show at Sarabande Foundation
May 2025
and intertwine with human existence. Camila Barvo’s sculptures invite to perceive hair as something far more than just a cosmetic scenery
encouraging reflection on the visceral nature of hair experiences. Rooted in the power of fibre entanglement and referencing Latinamerican
writer Maria Luisa Bombal’s short story ‘Trenzas’, this exhibition unfolds a braided and knotted installation that embodies the profound and
visceral presence of one’s own hair. This space serves as an intimate storehouse or morelike ‘storeforest’ where hair has a voice, embraces the
mysteries of time and treasures our emotional memory.
"Because a woman's hair originates from the deepest and most mysterious place— from
where the first bubble is born and trembles. It is from there that it unfurls, frays, and grows
amid many tangled forces, until it reaches the surface of the vegetal, the air, and the
privileged foreheads she chooses."
Bombal, Maria Luisa. Trenzas. Seix Barral. 1940
The braid as a sculptural form carries a dialogue between the filament and the body. Having the power to hold, it grips the fibre with both strength and softness. This cascade of plaits grows from the idea of the braid as a medium, a subtle yet solid structure made by weaving three strands together. Inspired by the artist’s memory of her father braiding her hair, the work reflects on how the feminine and masculine are gently intertwined in the delicate act of braiding.
This sculpture celebrates the diversity of hair texture. Echoing nature’s tendency to curve and ondulate flat surfaces, it exalts the gravity defying, growing movement of curls. Drawing on the artist’s adolescence, when limited products were available in the colombian curly hair market, she reluctantly relied on one called ‘Obedient Curls’. This piece stands as an act of rebellion against the taming of textured hair, posing the question: Why must curls beobedient?
Through the repeated gesture of the hand, the fibre curls, frays and grows into sculpture.
Inspired by the way plants adapt and shape themselves around facades and human-made
structures, this piece expands into a gravity defying form. Revealing how soft materials can
create structure and claim up space often reserved for the hard and solid.
Hair changes with us. Its density, color, texture, and length shift as time moves forward. This
sculpture stands as a knotted totem and as a tribute to the silent fortitude held within each filament that accompanies us through these transformations. The knot as holder and vessel of memory grows as a climbing plant into nature’s structure. The color transition reflects the passage of years, the deepening of wisdom, and the enduring mysticism that hair will always carry.