Femininity, Identity and Memory in the Textile Art of Camila Barvo

Camila Barvo

Contemporary textile artist Camila Barvo weaves complex ideas into her soft sculpture and fibre art, invoking curious, surreal worlds that veer somewhere between dreams and nightmares. Long fibres are stretched out, teased and pulled into colossal twisted braids and knots, hung suspended from the ceiling, spilling onto the floor, or draped across outdoor surfaces. She brings aspects of her Colombian history into view through the use of fique, jute, and coffee dyes associated with Latin American textile traditions, along with tying techniques that make reference to childhood memories, and the qualities that she associates with strength and femininity.

Now based in London, Barvo’s childhood in Latin America left an indelible mark. She recalls, “I was born and raised in Medellín. One of the clearest memories I have while growing up is my relationship with my grandfather. He was endlessly curious. He collected seeds and kept them in jars, sorted like tiny treasures. I’d spend hours playing with those seeds, looking at them one by one.” These seeds became a potent symbol of regeneration that would later feed into her art, as she notes, “I remember thinking: each of these seeds will become a different tree, each with its own shape, rhythm, and personality. I believe that was the moment I discovered a deep curiosity for natural objects, for the organic and transformable.”

DES-HILADO, 2021. Hand embroidered cotton, wool, yute and fique fibers. Naturally dyed with colombian coffee and ginger.

Barvo moved to Bogotá to study design at Universidad de los Andes, where she worked primarily with embroidery and textiles. It was during this time that she first began to see the fine art potential embedded within fabric, fibres, and weaving. Building on this breakthrough, she enrolled at the Royal College of Art (RCA) to pursue a Master’s degree focused on textile art. Living and working in London was a formative time, when she was able to push her art practice in bold new directions. “Being in London helped me legitimize my voice as an artist and understand the value of something born out of intimacy and craft,” she remembers, “…but still able to hold space within the art world.”

Much of her practice relates to human hair, and the processes of knotting and braiding she has experienced through taming her own curly hair since childhood, a theme that has allowed her to examine connections between memory, identity, and femininity. In her work, La Trenza Como Hilo, made in 2025, for example, she notes, “This piece serves as a personal reflection on the act of braiding. It explores an imagined space where emotions tied to hair might be stored, what would such this place look like? If a braid could trace a cartography of feelings, how would that map unfold?”

Trenzado. Soft sculpture via RCA

Barvo also sees her hair as innately tied to her family history, noting, “There are so many social layers in Latin America, I feel like hair is something that, in a way, connects us all… What I wanted to do with my work was add another layer to the conversation, maybe just bring in my perspective.” Introducing naturalistic fibres from Latin American textile traditions has furthered the meaningful links with her cultural heritage, and allowed her to expand into larger scales, magnifying her fibrous sculptures into vast, all-encompassing installations that seem to sprout a life of their own as they spill out into the space around them.

Still shot from video ‘Gesture anthology’ via RCA

Ultimately, working with fibre art has been a liberating experience for Barvo, particularly at a time she sees as pivotal in the development of soft sculpture and fabric-based practices. “I feel that textile art is truly on the rise right now,” she says. “People are beginning to recognize it as a distinct category within the broader art world. The thing is, textiles have long been viewed as decorative elements or domestic objects. But I feel this is changing—those boundaries are starting to blur. Here in the UK, textile art is already firmly established as a category.”