Cardón cardinal,

A3 watercolour and pencil drawing

A historical narrative is only as convincing and credible as its author. Esquivias’ work mixes micro-stories in an apparently random way with big narratives. “Cardón cardinal” is the story of the giant cactus that was unearthed in the Mexican desert on the occasion of the Expo92 World Exhibition and flown to Seville by plane – which is still standing there today, but is slowly but surely drying up.

For the drawing, which was later to be turned into a tapestry, Patricia Esquivias and Lilli Hartmann conversed over some months. The working process followed those lines:

Patricia assembled images and told stories in order to lay out a framework, and Lilli sought to distill those visually into a drawing that reflected Patricia’s mind and intention as closely as possible.