Testo

Two performers play out on stage the gestures of  the loom weaving. Starting from the gathering reeds for the threads to the weaving of the final fabric, Testo (from latin textus, past participate of texĕre ‘to weave, to interweave’) writes and tells a new story building on Maria De Stefano’s testimony; weaver and master at the Textile Art Reserch Centre in Calabria, in Testo, her work has been translated and handed down in a scenic and performative form.

I met Mrs. Maria in the small village of Squillace during a pottery workshop, during a hot Mediterranean August. I was collecting notes for a wide-ranging paper. So I asked her to tell me about her weaving practice. We met at her house. Shortly after she started telling me about her work; I saw her hands making gestures, which corresponded to those of harvesting and processing loom. Immediately those gestures reminded me of something else, with her hands to the sky, she was gathering fabric and counting the stars. So I asked her to repeat the entire sequence for me the next day. I filmed it.

BIO
Maria Luigia Gioffrè (Soverato, 1990) is a visual artist and performer. She graduated in 2017 in visual arts at Central Saint Martins in London. She deepens theater and performance practices: she attended the Biennale di Venezia | College Danza for the performance Levèe des conflicts by Boris Charmatz and Olivia Grandville. She has also been a performer for Block Universe Festival, Young In Hong at Royal Academy of Arts in London.  Some results of her research have also been presented at Tate Modern as part of the Tate Exchange program. Maria Luigia’s work has been featured in various exhibitions, awards and conferences and is part of academic and non-academic anthologies mapping contemporary art.