“To give us a common place to begin as a collective, Jimmie Durham, shortly before his death, suggested that we go to the woods or even a parking lot and sit down and spend some time looking precisely around us wherever we were. It is a comfortable circle of about a meter and a half. It is a way to introduce yourself to the place and for the place to introduce itself to you — to begin to be in the place.” Maria Thereza Alves

The carpets patterns designed by Maria Thereza Alves are inspired by the Middle East and its traditionally rich floral patterns. They are usually placed in indoor or outdoor spaces to create meeting places – creating portable gardens, recalling the different forces underlying human existence. The flowers and plants represented are a reminder of man’s increasing control over nature as well as colonization. The circulation of beings allows Alves to draw up a paradoxical history of globalization, between uprooting, abandonment and resistance. These plants placed into new complexities are the trace of a vestige of our past.