Bringing the World into the World

In a context marked by wars, political hostility, and a global tendency toward the entrenchment of authoritarian-patriarchal regimes in today’s international arena, Bringing the World into the World is a celebration of the maternal symbolic order, grounded in a vitalist ethics that affirms the life impulse as a dynamic process.

I draw on the phrase Bringing the World into the World, conceived by the Italian community of women philosophers Diotima, to place ethics above any political banner: no idea can be worth more than a life. In the You–I dyad, the You is not an object of the I, but an end in itself: an irreducible, unique, absolute presence—the world.

I invoke blood red, entrails, umbilical cords, breasts, and wombs as a celebration of the You–I bond. In the expression “within the maternal womb,” I see a metaphor for intersubjective communion, the threshold of dialogue, a pre-verbal space, a mystery sustained by what Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui calls “the desire for the ch’ixi”: the aspiration to inhabit contradiction without erasing it.

And if the breasts symbolize intersubjective communion, the red mantle refers to a willingness to serve the mystery of the encounter between that I and You, in which the You gives me the possibility of being I.

Formally, the work is made using traditional techniques—crochet, basketry, hand weaving, embroidery, and ceramics—and evokes Orthodox icons. According to tradition, icons are portals through which communication with the divine order becomes possible. In this work, that place is occupied by human life, which contains dimensions of mystery that can only be apprehended through a sensitive and sentient form of reason.

P.S. [Postscript added in early 2026]

I often feel that my way of working resembles a hypertext network: I begin an investigation believing—and swearing—that I am dealing with something clearly defined and concrete, only to discover, after some time, that another inquiry was waiting inside it to be opened. I never quite know where one question ends and the next begins.

Through images associated with the maternal symbolic order, interdependence, and care, I arrived at the origin of a broader investigation into apotropaic practices, which I invite you to explore on the page dedicated to the work Apotropaica.

48 × 34 cm
crochet, Peruvian yarn, cotton thread

“Invitation to Dialogue”
textile piece, found objects
60 × 100 cm

“The Intensity of Dialogue”
50 × 50 cm
wet felting, threads, canvas, gouache

«Поговорили по душам» / “They Had a Heart-to-Heart”
45 × 25 cm
textile piece on a canvas-covered stretcher

“Rozhánitsa: Symbols of Life and Fertility”
65 × 165 cm
textile piece, cotton thread

“After the Encounter”
25 × 25 cm
textile piece on a stretcher frame

“Birth of Dialogue”
25 × 25 cm
textile piece on a stretcher frame

This work was selected for the 12th International Mini Textile and Fibre Art Exhibition “Scythia,” held in June 2025 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

100 × 100 cm
crochet, thread wrapping, Peruvian yarn, cotton thread

“Levinas Formula”
74 × 78 cm
textile piece, cotton thread

“I + you = the world” condenses an essential idea: the existence of the I is formed through relationship; it is the Other who gives me the possibility of being I.

Inspired by the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, this piece affirms that the origin of the human lies in relationship—a bond mediated by responsibility and by one’s regard for the Other.