Begoña Aragón Gil

‘Last night at my mother’s house’ is a textile artist book exploring my emotional response to parent-child estrangement. Inspired by a restless night in my childhood bedroom, it reflects on the precarious, low-contact relationship between child and mother, and the struggle to define one’s own identity and self-expression when it doesn’t match the mother’s expectations. The book is written as both a diary and a personal letter to the parent, a private, honest account of the feelings and questions that cannot be shared in an emotionally unsafe environment. I used layered fabric and thread, materials which are traditionally associated with female, maternal labour and the home. Fabric can evoke comfort and familiarity, but at the same time there is a violent aspect in the process of cutting and sewing, which is representative of the conflicted feelings in an unhealthy parent-child dynamic.