Multidisciplinary Designer
Spatial Design | Textile Art | Immersive Storytelling
A Poem of Absence, A touch of light, a pathway to resilience.
The installation transforms interaction into metaphorical healing. As viewers touch the embroidered losses on the black tulle strips, the white lights gradually fade, leading the sculpture into darkness. Sound then fills the space with recited and sung poetry, occupying the space where words dissolve into feeling.
The transition from darkness to sound mirrors the emotional shift of widowhood: from public visibility to private reflection. Poetry becomes a bridge, allowing viewers to enter the interior life of Widow and experience collective grief and resilience.
Charles Dana Gibson Illustration, A widow and her friends. New York: R. H. Russell; London: J. Lane, 1901. (seq.15) She Finds That Exercise Does Not Improve Her Spirits
Echoes of Absence
At the heart of the installation is my poem Ausencia (Absences), capturing the precise instant when the presence of a loved one becomes irrevocably absent. Its cyclical and simple form reflects the echo of loss—its tension, hollowness, and suspended silence.
The poem is heard in three versions:
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Spanish recitation, read by me, preserving the intimacy of its original language
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English reading, voiced by my daughter
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Musical rendition, composed and sung by my other daughter
These layered voices remind us that while widows may feel profoundly isolated, grief is not theirs alone. Its impact radiates through families, communities, and everyone whose lives were connected with the absence left behind.
Our voices—my daughters’ and my own—read and sing, each carrying a different echo of the same loss. In this way, Absences becomes a shared space: a chorus woven from the loss of a father and a husband, making grief visible, audible, and gathered into a soundscape of remembrance.
A Multisensory Kintsugi
Viewers’ interactions continue to direct the narrative. Gradually, the installation transitions to a wash of golden light, creating a “Multisensory Kintsugi” that merges poetry, music, and light into an immersive metaphor for healing.
The golden light highlights rather than conceals losses and brokenness. The scars of widowhood are acknowledged, showing that grief can transform into strength, connection, and renewed purpose.
Like the gold lacquer in kintsugi, the voices of my family—reciting, reading, composing—bind the fragmented moments of loss, symbolizing restoration that comes from family, community, and society.
"Covered in mourning"
Mending My Identity
The installation also reflects the complexity of my identity. At first, the word widow felt overwhelming, as if it eclipsed everything else I am. Yet I remain the sum of all my roles—woman, mother, designer, poet, artist, and widow.
Holding these identities together has been essential to reclaiming a sense of wholeness; widowhood shapes me, but it does not define me alone.
In this shared sensory space, grief becomes visible, audible, and acknowledged, and the possibility of healing—supported by family and community—becomes tangible.