Rumination Therapy (2014 - 2017)

Dimensions variable - Embroidered cotton

Rumination is defined as repetitive, self-focused, negative thinking. Obsessing over failures, reliving misfortunes from the past and the inability to escape from destructive thought patterns.

Rumination Therapy was a three-year long process of translation, first from one language to another and then from paper to embroidered cotton.

I had asked my maternal grandmother for a favourite poem or quote, expecting one or two pieces of text; she gave me eighty-four.

The subsequent 145 pieces of fabric depict my slow deciphering of her neat, cursive handwriting. Having left Bulgaria at age 4, my mother tongue remains stunted.

Red gaps represent words missing from my limited vocabulary and their respective spaces in a bilingual dictionary. Red stitches show corrections made by myself and later, my parents. White crochet made by my grandmother to the dimensions of the original text, begin each quote.

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