Bloodline

Bloodline is a hand-stitched cyanotype textile made from a vintage cotton bedsheet from my childhood home in Poland. Printed across its surface are photographs drawn from my family archive opre and post WWII, bringing people separated by generations into a single, fragmented image.

At the centre of the work is my grandmother, Michasia, whose life was shaped by war, forced labour and the years that followed. Her image appears alongside other members of my family, some known to me through lived memory and others only through photographs and inherited stories.

Red thread travels across the textile, connecting, interrupting and repairing the photographic fragments. Stitching these photographs together is both a physical and symbolic act: a way of trying ot understand the relationships across generations and acknowledging the gaps that remain.

Using a domestic object that once belonged to my family, Bloodline considers what is carried through generations — through photographs, objects, stories and the traces people leave behind.


Presented in r.a.g.e. – random acts of gentle expression group exhibition, Trocadero Projects  

Rather than presenting creativity as a singular moment of inspiration or breakthrough, r.a.g.e. considers artistic practice as something continually negotiated and sustained over time. Here, resilience is not simply endurance, but the repeated act of returning to the work – despite uncertainty, conflict and constant change.

 

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r.a.g.e. Random Acts of Random Expression exhibition_Trocadero Projects Footscray
Artwork: Bloodline, Cyanotype tapestry [detail] by Aldona Kmieć