{"id":26809,"date":"2026-02-16T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fotografiaeuropea.it\/avada_portfolio\/emilia-martin\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T13:02:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T12:02:32","slug":"emilia-martin","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/www.fotografiaeuropea.it\/en\/exhibitions\/emilia-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"Emilia Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Emilia Martin, godsips, Poland, 2025, digital medium format photograph, courtesy of the artist<\/div>

Emilia Martin, godsips, Poland, 2025, digital medium format photograph, courtesy of the artist<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Emilia Martin, I don\u2019t much like my daughter sewing, Sweden, 2024, a fragment of a photograph from the archive of the Landskrona museum, courtesy of the artist; Landskrona Museum Photographic Archive<\/div>

Emilia Martin, I don\u2019t much like my daughter sewing, Sweden, 2024, a fragment of a photograph from the archive of the Landskrona museum, courtesy of the artist; Landskrona Museum Photographic Archive<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Emilia Martin, to repair damage, Netherlands, 2025, medium format photograph, courtesy of the artist<\/div>

Emilia Martin, to repair damage, Netherlands, 2025, medium format photograph, courtesy of the artist<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Emilia Martin. The Serpent’s thread<\/h2>\n<\/div>

Curated by Eleonora Schianchi<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a child, I spent countless hours observing my beloved grandmother, a Polish countryside textile worker, stitching scraps of material into objects that were new, soft, and enduring. Like a storyteller weaving elements into a tale, her textiles were composed of many fibres, many threads, and many hands reaching back through time. Never formally educated to write due to the gender politics of her era, textile-making became her language, carrying the knowledge of generations of women before me. When she passed away, her works, perceived as having no value, were discarded or lost.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>Inspired by this missing archive of her life\u2019s work, I began tracing other histories of women whose textiles serve as ghosts where records fall silent, continuing an intergenerational legacy of weaving scraps into stories.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>“The serpent\u2019s thread”<\/strong> follows fragmented records and folklore surrounding the five Andersson sisters, who lived in the small Swedish village of \u00c5smundtorp at the turn of the 20th century. Their history, partly documented and partly mythologised, revolves around the textiles they produced as elaborate dowries – objects meant to demonstrate a woman\u2019s skill, diligence, and moral worth, and to represent her value as a potential future wife.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>Despite the intricacy of their work, only one of the sisters ever married. The remaining textiles – complex, unused, and perfectly preserved – form a parallel to my grandmother\u2019s lost works. Together, they exist as an ambiguous archive of domestic labour and the societal expectations placed upon women.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>The sisters\u2019 unconventional lives opened space for speculation and local legends: some claimed they were rebellious lesbians, driving extravagant cars while smoking cigars; others described them as solitary spinsters, pitied for their loneliness; some believed their textiles carried mysterious spells.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>Like a textile containing many threads, “the serpent\u2019s thread” serves as a visual retelling that merges documentation with myth-making, history with fiction. Through archival images and documents, staged compositions, and photographic interventions printed and layered through textile processes, the work is reconstructed from multiple (hi)stories stitched together: those of women makers, rebels, and those whose voices were recorded, devalued, or lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Open Call is made thanks to the support of Iren,<\/a> already a special sponsor of the festival, which supports the search for new talent and new perspectives on contemporary reality.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Biography<\/span><\/a><\/h2><\/div>
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Emilia Martin<\/strong> is a Polish artist and photographer based in The Hague (NL). Rooted in a belief in the power of storytelling passed down through ancestral heritage, Martin weaves narratives that challenge binary distinctions between truth and fiction. Working intersectionally with photography, writing, sound, and sculpture, her practice draws from oral histories, myths, legends, and rituals, reflecting on their role in shaping societal structures, collective memory, and human and more-than-human relations.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>She graduated from the Photography & Society Master\u2019s program at the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) in 2022 and holds an academic background in literature and poetry. Martin works from her studio at Stichting Daisy Chain in The Hague and internationally. Her project I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears was published as a book by Yogurt Editions in 2024 and exhibited internationally, including at Rencontres d\u2019Arles 2025, LUMA Arles during Rencontres d\u2019Arles 2024 as a finalist of the Dior x LUMA Award, Fotofestiwal \u0141\u00f3d\u017a 2025, and Photo Museum Ireland (2025), among others. She is also a co-founder of Radio Echo, a feminist radio collective dedicated to amplifying diverse voices.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Events<\/span><\/a><\/h2><\/div>
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Tickets<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/div>

exhibition venue<\/h3>\n

Palazzo Da Mosto
\nvia Mari, 7
\nReggio Emilia<\/p>\n<\/div>

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