In the environment of Pueblo Garzón, Uruguay, sheep walk among thistles and snakes with relative fluidity and harmony, often even interchanging and amalgamating properties of forms and in unexpected configurations.

The softness and roughness are also expressed in the rural environment where beyond a romantic relationship with nature as landscapes of contemplation, there are also present dynamics of domestication towards the countryside that is sustenance and food. In/visible labours and a tangle of admirable symbiotic relationships surround the thistles and the sheep.

Sustaining Softness amidst Thistles and Snakes seeks to celebrate a softness that exposes and protects; a softness as a political stance of re-existence that is sustained despite the geopolitical and eco-social adversities of the planetary times we live in.

The piece is made in dialogue with José Soussa, a local sheep herder with whom an exchange of stories was made by felt technique, seeking to revalue the value of wool and the work of shepherding that, in the local context, seem to be materials and trades increasingly invisible and precarious.

Installation made during my residency at CAMPO Garzón.
Curatorship and accompaniment by Patricia Bentancur
Photographs by Rafiki Sánchez, Lu Lee, Darío Invernizzi and myself.
Thanks to the support of José Soussa, Patricia, the resident friends, the neighbours of Garzón, the sheep, the CAMPO team, and the CAMPO team.