CELINA ECEIZA BRINGS HER TEXTILE INSTALLATION TO CANADA

The Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) presents A Material Called Earth, Volume I: The Life of Corners by Celina Eceiza (Tandil, Argentina, 1988), curated by Sylvie Fortin. On view until August 16, 2026, the exhibition launches the artist's ambitious three-year project with a site-specific installation that radically transforms the gallery. Colourful, hand-dyed, stitched, and embroidered textiles, alongside large-scale drawings on fabric, cover walls, reshape ceilings, muffle floors, and generate new forms, inviting visitors to inhabit the space: to linger, explore, rest, gather, and let their imaginations roam.

The immersive environment also houses a varied ensemble of sculptures ranging in scale from palm-sized to near-monumental. Some are soft, ready to hold the body. Others, hard and mottled, cradle colourful ceramics drawn from the AGB's collection storage. By incorporating works by other artists, Eceiza's installation challenges the enduring myth of artistic "genius" and its preferred format—the solo exhibition. The Life of Corners argues, instead, that every show or creative endeavour is collective.

El artista nunca piensa solo [The Artist Never Thinks Alone] is, in fact, the title of one of several oversized books sewn into the floor, whispering stories of kinship to those who crouch down to read them. It is an illustrated index of Eceiza's artistic affiliations: made of fabric, each page pays homage to an artist who has shaped her understanding of art. In scale, materiality, and process, the book rejects conventional notions of artistic genealogy, influence, and inspiration. Its stitches and gestures of devotion speak instead of an intimate, passionate attention close to the practice of copying.

Eceiza's work is also sustained by the hands of numerous local collaborators who worked together to give form to her vision. The Life of Corners carries the traces of that labour in stitches and folds as unique as a signature or a fingerprint. The installation affirms that art is a reverberating practice that connects us—and makes room for everyone: real and imagined, past and future.

At a time when social contracts seem broken, if not entirely obsolete, The Life of Corners offers a vibrant alternative rooted in interdependence. It draws us into a living network of relations where meaning, beauty, and encounter emerge collectively, and where art becomes a space to gather, reflect, and imagine other ways of being together.

Celina Eceiza is a Buenos Aires–based artist. Her solo exhibitions have been presented at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Halle für Kunst Steiermark (Graz), and other institutions. Her work has featured in major group exhibitions including the 18th Istanbul Biennial (2025) and the First Biennial of Textile Art in Santiago (2023). In 2018 she published the novel El falsificador [The Counterfeiter] with Tammy Metzler. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.

Celina Eceiza: A Material Called Earth, Volume I is on view until August 16 at the Art Gallery of Burlington, 1333 Lakeshore Road, Burlington, Ontario, (Canada).