A Fabric of Sounds: The Embroidered Art of Vivian Caccuri

There is a curious and unexpected dichotomy between sound and fabric in the art of Vivian Caccuri, inviting us to consider the ways in which the two are more closely interrelated than we might at first think. Primarily a sound-based artist, her recent forays into textiles has provided a tactile and sensorial element to her work. In the past few years, she has been toying with the thin mesh of mosquito screens, which she embroiders into with fine thread, to create artworks that are as multi-layered and complex as her music.

Caccuri was born in 1986 in Brazil, and she grew up during the 2000s techno scene of Sao Paolo. Young adulthood was a formative time for the artist, when she became increasingly aware of the power music and sound had for bringing people together into a collective experience. Following graduation from a Fine Arts degree in 2007, Caccuri has gone on to explore the emotive and physically arresting qualities of sound through a whole series of experimental installations, drawings, performances and embroidery, taking part in major group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

Chahal Colosso, 2023, Art Miami Magazine

Caccuri’s most recent work has centred around the visual patterns, symbolism, and complex stories bound into the humble mosquito net, using these mesh sheets as a ground on which to build ideas. On the one hand, she likens their stiff, aerated surface to that which covers speakers, allowing sound to be muffled and vibrated. She says, “Textiles and speakers are in the same universe. There are a lot of textiles that are traditionally applied to speakers, and for me, it was part of something that is familiar but with different dimensions and forms.”

She also enjoys the way the moiré effect of layered screens shifts according to movement, merging her mutual interests in sound and visual effects, observing, “Usually two screens create their own moiré effect. And it’s a vibration that follows your movement when you’re walking toward or across the work.”

Vivian Caccuri working on a mosquito net.

In some works, such as Chahal Colosso and Chahal Altar – both made in 2023 – she builds up textures and patterns, layering multiple screens together and incorporating acrylic and resin glazes to produce visually rich artworks. “The thread of the embroideries and the silhouettes are projected as a shadow on the back wall,” she says. “I wanted to find a dimensional object to have the most layers as possible: you have the layer of the sound, you have the layer of the front screen, the back screen, the vibration of both screens and the back shadow. I think, for me, it’s how I see music.” In Chahal Colosso Caccuri illustrates dancers in a collective state of euphoria, lost in the transcendental power of music.

But Caccuri is also drawn to the conceptual possibilities bound into mosquito nets, often exploring their potential to become a carrier of complex socio-political ideas. Her sound installations featuring embroidered mosquito nets often lean into the fear surrounding mosquitos, with their menacing shape woven into the mesh of the net, and sounds that echo their telltale, threatening buzz.

In the large embroidery Mosquito Shrine II, 2020, Caccuri goes a stage further, exploring the wider political implications bound within this small insect. She retells the arrival of European colonists to the so-called ‘New World’ as seen from the lens of the mosquito. The insect is represented as a paramilitary force, symbolizing the sheer force of nature in the tropical climate. Her intricately woven story tells how colonialism only served to cause harm to the natural ecosystem, thus making the mosquito even more deadly.