Francesca Visocchi lives in Atina, a small town in the Comino Valley, in the province of Frosinone, Italy. Her textile art has deep roots, yet over time, it has evolved through significant encounters and ingenious ideas.
In 2015, Francesca traveled to Greece to participate in the project “Handmade Baby Carriers for Refugees” in Idomeni. This initiative involved sewing baby carriers for migrants transiting along the Balkan route, in collaboration with a group of Greek women. It was these women who taught Francesca how to use a sewing machine. However, she did not limit herself to conventional sewing techniques; instead, she began using fabric as a canvas and thread as a pencil.
This decorative impulse led her art to evolve further. By 2020, she experimented with embellishing face masks, which, during the COVID-19 pandemic, deprived wearers of facial expression. Through embroidery on the masks themselves, Francesca sought to restore a hidden aspect of identity and communication.
Sustainability plays a key role in Francesca’s artistic practice, evident in two fundamental aspects. Firstly, her art is not only zero-impact but also transformative—she creates new objects from discarded materials. Her patchwork textile pieces are crafted using fabric scraps collected from seamstresses, embracing a principle dear to the circular economy.
Secondly, she incorporates organic materials, particularly leaves of various shapes and sizes, into her artwork. She follows the natural veins of the leaves with her stitches, turning them into decorative elements. This technique highlights the ephemeral nature of leaves, which eventually decay, but for the artist, this transience embodies the true essence of art—it is not meant to last forever.
Among her recent exhibitions:
- Solo Exhibitions: “Di Tessuti e di Foglie” at Ozio, Alvito, and Festival delle Storie.
- Group Exhibitions: “Riscarti 2024” at La Vaccheria, Rome; “Epiphyllum Prize” at Casa della Cultura, Palazzo Bacchetti, Anagni.
- Performances: Crack Festival 2023 and 2024, where she presented a live sewing show—bringing her sewing machine on-site to create pieces in real-time and in collaboration with the audience.
