A Conversation With Artist Catalina Swinburn, “Healing Rituals,” Open Studio, by James Scarborough

Catalina Swinburn’s “Healing Rituals” revalidates the place of women throughout history. Swinburn uses weaving as a metaphor for female expression, a practice that has historically substituted for the silence imposed on women across time. Her works, which she calls “anticipated archaeology,” describe the presence and accumulation of fragments that provide new meaning to the whole. The UV prints on Arches Aquarelle, each 105h x 75w cm, depict heads of female stone, terracotta, and bronze sculptures from ancient Greece. These sculptures, many of which are “kores” or unidentified women, alongside mythological figures, symbolize collective resistance and the unyielding search for expression and freedom. By combining these images with documentation on Greek vessels that narrate scenes of women’s daily lives and mythological feats, Swinburn creates a series of dismantled portraits. These images, torn from the spines of archaeological books, appear as a collection of mutilated women and mythological figures that, though silenced, continue to seek expression. “Healing Rituals” challenges us to acknowledge the historical silencing of women’s voices and to recognize the enduring power of art as a form of resistance and revalidation.

JS: How did the concept of “Healing Rituals” originate? What inspired you to focus on themes of female expression and historical revalidation?

CS: The inspiration that drives my work is the ritual. I aim to rescue ancestral rituals related to sacred places, ancestral geography, and original memory, incorporating them into my own exploration where the work is presented as a syncretic bricolage. This approach attempts to reconcile different doctrines through a process of transculturalization. There has always been a specific focus on women’s roles in connection with healing. Death cults, fertility cults, and healing play key roles in rituals and festivals across time and geographies, often associated with women. However, most of these have not been recorded in history, primarily because men didn’t write about them or even know about them. I liked the idea of enhancing the place of women as a powerful force in society and history, revealing that women might have exercised more power in ancient society than has generally been assumed.

JS: Explain the significance of weaving in your work as a metaphor for resistance and female expression.

CS: Textiles eloquently express women's concern with cultural tradition and transmutation, fundamental to studies of gender, social identity, status, exchange, and modernization. Weaving tends to demarcate a suspension of ordinary existence and is among the most visible signs of sacred space and roles. The main purpose of my work is to revalidate the place of women through history. I use my practice of weaving historical narratives as a metaphor for resistance, where woven narratives substitute for the silence of women throughout history. Weaving symbolizes female expression, substituting a woman’s voice and portraying what words cannot say. Weaving has always been an alternative discourse, referencing female resilience and articulating both a sense of urgency and a mode of resistance.

JS: What does the term “anticipated archaeology” mean to you? How does it influence your artistic approach?

CS: Turning a collapse into a work is the challenge. Conceiving ruins as a condition of knowledge, the printed image itself is a condition of a ruin; through printed material, which now belongs to collections of books discarded from public libraries. I have devoted myself to recovering these books from the ruins of the publishing industry, converting them into a complex raw material emerging from their disappearance as objects, initiating a regressive process that obliterates the representation of the image and the letter. Terms like “anticipated archaeology,” “archaic contingency,” and “archives from the future” resonate with my work. I aim to connect my pieces to ancient knowledge and lost civilizations, creating a feeling of found objects, ritual investitures, sacred offerings, textiles, or artifacts that could come from the past or future, linking them to an unknown time and space.

JS: How do the female stone, terracotta, and bronze sculptures from ancient Greece contribute to the narrative of your artworks?

CS: Weaving together portraits from ancient Greece, now displaced and exhibited in institutions worldwide, is symbolic. Joining this diaspora of emblematic women creates an image of collective female resistance. Despite the lack of real evidence on these myths, and with many portraits depicting unknown women or ‘Kores,’ these lithographs interpret myths, celebrating female collectives and their contributions to history.

JS: Why did you choose to include both “kores” and mythological figures in your lithographs? What do they symbolize?

CS: I liked the idea of “kores,” as unidentified women, symbolizing that every woman has played a significant role in history and society. These broken, mutilated images represent the constant reconstruction women face daily. No matter how broken we are, there is always a way to regenerate or recompose the pieces for a brighter future. In contrast, the mythological figures exalt the power of men over the silent, unrecorded work of women in history.

JS: How do the Greek vessels with red and black figures, depicting scenes of women’s daily lives and mythological poems, enhance the themes of your series?

CS: The importance of weaving in the ancient world is highlighted by its prominent place in myth and legend. Much of what we know about the role of women in ancient times wasn't recorded, and most writers were men. Greek vases provide vast information on this missing literature. How can we understand ancient culture's mainstays, like healing rituals, when male recorders did not, and could not, know or say much about what occurred since these rituals were carried out by women?

JS: What role does the medium of UV print on Arches Aquarelle play in conveying the themes of durability and permanence in your work? How do you hope this work will contribute to contemporary discussions on gender equality and the representation of women in history?

CS: I am interested in giving art a place of transcendence. There is a need to return to traditional culture, relate respectfully to nature, and focus on sustainable projects that aspire to transcendence. This is why I choose noble and durable materials like marble, stone, bronze, leather, and paper. I also enjoy challenging these mediums in non-traditional ways, connecting ancestral knowledge with scientific thinking, creating a new poetic line with the ecological movement. This opens a dialogue between conservation and innovation, continuity and transmutation, combining local crafts with global trends and showing how selected geographies share universal and mutual creative affinities.

JS: What specific challenges did you face while creating the work? How did you overcome them?

CS: There were a few challenges. The paper is quite special; it's 640 grams and I could only find it in Chile. I had to fly it over to Buenos Aires, where I printed the editions with my printer, with whom I've worked for almost 20 years. In a way, it's a result of many narratives of displacement, not just in the pilgrimage these works have undertaken to arrive in Tunis and London today, but also in the technique and process of making them.

JS: What message do you want viewers to take away from “Healing Rituals”? How do you envision it impacting their perception of women’s roles in history?

CS: Greek mythology is filled with potent observations for our times, articulating arguments similar to today’s debates on women’s equality. Using archaeological documentation as the medium, “Healing Rituals” appreciates the vital feminine contributions to human civilization across political, spiritual, and practical spheres. Historically, cult spaces have lacked feminine energy. I believe it’s time to give voice to lost or undocumented books about women's roles in history and revalidate myths, legends, stories, and narratives to regenerate a discourse on roles, responsibility, and freedom.

The Open Studio took place on Wednesday June 19th. The Studio is located at 222 Kensal Road, London W10 5BN, United Kingdom. For inquiries, click here.

Photos courtesy of Catalina Swinburn Studio & Bardo Collections

KORE 684, Athens,The Acropolis Museum, Greece

KORE 670, Athens, The Acropolis Museum, Greece

EUCOLINE, Athens, The Acropolis Museum, Greece

APOLLO, Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Olympia Museum

KORE 674 Athens, Acropolis Museum, Greece

KORE 674 Athens, Acropolis Museum, Greece