Artist-in-residence at Tower Gallery 2026

Three months, from May to August 2026, in a church tower studio. The work was grounded in the censored writings of six medieval women: Teresa of Ávila, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Joan of Arc.

I am not religious. I defected from the church at 18yo. I grew up in the same Catholic school since I was 3yo, translating Latin texts I did not yet know would become the root of my practice. And here I was, in a church tower, working with the very texts that the institution once tried to burn.

Their bodies were covered. I turned them inside out. Their words were hidden. I brought them back into the open.

I am interested in their bodies, how they responded to visions, to punishment, to systems that covered and controlled them. Ecstasy. Pleasure. Blood. Tears. Fire. I translated their texts into material form: organza, silk, calico, earth, charcoal, gold. The work is raw, carnal, tender. It holds what was silenced.

Not all the works are finished. One is complete, two are in development, and the remaining three have begun to flourish. The residency gave me a starting point, a body of work that pulls me in. It is the first time my making, my research, and my critical curiosity have aligned so fully.

This practice is intuitive. It starts with touch, I need to feel the fabric, the charcoal, the paint before I know what it wants to become. I know how to start a work, but I never know what will emerge, or when it will end.

The residency was a push I needed, to make for myself, to trust the process, to let the work unfold. I am continuing this body of work outside the tower. This is not a side practice. It is how I think, how I feel.

New beginnings are emerging.

The Fabric of Forgotten Women

As part of the residency, I co-facilitated a collaborative feminist art workshop with Marianna Zoumpliou (Artist and Art Facilitator, Learning Department at Saatchi Gallery) https://www.mariannazoumpliou.com/

Feminism is about rage. But it is also about quiet patience, patience that is now sharpening into something else.

In this community workshop, we did not just look at stories of women across history. From Joan of Arc to Doora Mar. 13 women that we answered to. We painted, wrote, drew and stitched our replies onto a long piece of fabric. Not mourning, not explanation. Just reply. Reply to us as well.

The fabric became a banner, an installation, a collective act of unravelling one story and stitching another.

This was a free workshop, open to everyone, not just women, because this is the way we walk together towards fairness and equality.

Gallery photographs by Elvira Fabregat https://elvirafabregat.wixsite.com/elvirafabregatbelen