Florence, Landscape, and the Formation of My Practice

Born in Florence, the heart of the Renaissance, I developed a profound appreciation for beauty and art from a very early age. Florence is not simply a city where one grows up; it is a place where aesthetics, history, and cultural memory permeate everyday life. The cobblestone streets, the monumental cathedrals, the frescoed interiors of churches and palaces, and the quiet presence of centuries-old workshops create an atmosphere where beauty is not an abstract concept but a living reality.

The city’s history of artistic excellence is not something confined to museums or textbooks. It inhabits the streets themselves. Walking through Florence means constantly encountering traces of human creativity — architecture, sculpture, textiles, paintings — each one a reminder that artistic production has long been woven into the identity of the place. In this sense, Florence operates almost like a living archive, where the past continuously shapes the present.

During my postgraduate research, I began to recognise that my attraction to art and material culture was not simply a personal preference but something deeply rooted in this landscape. Florence had quietly shaped my perception of beauty, craftsmanship, and artistic responsibility.

Among the many figures associated with the city, Dante Alighieri remains perhaps its most enduring voice. In Divine Comedy, Dante captured the complexity, intensity, and emotional depth of Florence with extraordinary precision. His writing reveals not only the spiritual and philosophical concerns of his time but also the powerful emotional relationship he maintained with the city itself.

One passage from Paradiso has always stayed with me:
“You shall leave everything you love most: this is the arrow that the bow of exile shoots first.”

This line reflects Dante’s exile from Florence, but it also speaks to something broader — the deep bond between identity and place. Florence was not merely a geographical location for him. It was a formative environment that shaped his imagination, his intellectual development, and his sense of belonging.

Growing up in Florence, I began to understand this attachment in my own way. The city carries a powerful duality. On one hand, it is visually magnificent — filled with masterpieces and architectural harmony. On the other, it is vibrant, intense, and sometimes overwhelming. This combination of beauty and passion creates a distinctive atmosphere that many Florentines recognise instinctively.

In many ways, Florence teaches its inhabitants to take beauty seriously.

This sensibility can be felt especially strongly in the city’s long history of textile production. For centuries, Florence and the surrounding region have been centres of textile craftsmanship, producing fabrics that travelled across Europe and beyond. Walking through the city, one can still sense this heritage. Textile workshops, historic guilds, and contemporary ateliers all contribute to a continuous tradition of making.

This legacy of craftsmanship profoundly influenced my own interest in textiles. Fabrics, yarns, and woven structures began to appear not only as materials but as carriers of cultural memory. Textiles, after all, are among the most intimate forms of material culture. They touch the body, move with it, and accompany it through daily life.

At the same time, another landscape shaped my perspective in a completely different way.

While Florence represented artistic and historical richness, my father’s farm introduced me to a more elemental and grounded environment. His passion for sheepdogs and the rhythms of rural life exposed me to a world defined less by artistic monuments and more by natural cycles.

Life on the farm followed the pace of seasons, weather, and animal care. The loyalty and hardworking spirit of the sheepdogs mirrored my father’s dedication to the land and to the animals he worked with. In contrast to Florence’s urban density, the countryside offered a form of clarity — a reminder that life could also be simple, physical, and deeply connected to nature.

These two environments might appear contradictory, yet they formed a surprisingly coherent foundation for my interests.

Florence cultivated my sensitivity to beauty, art, and cultural heritage.

The countryside cultivated my respect for authenticity, labour, and the natural world.

Between these two landscapes, my fascination with textiles gradually emerged.

Textiles sit precisely at the intersection of these worlds. They are at once artistic and practical, aesthetic and functional. A piece of fabric contains traces of landscape, agriculture, labour, and design. Fibres originate in fields and animals; yarns are spun through human skill; fabrics are woven through technical knowledge and artistic sensibility.

Because of this complexity, textiles quickly became more than simple materials for me. They became a language.

Each fabric seemed to tell a story about where it came from — about the environment that produced the fibre, the hands that processed it, and the cultural traditions that shaped its design. Colours, textures, and structures carried meaning. They could express identity, memory, and belonging.

My practice began to explore precisely these possibilities.

Textile art, for me, became a way of examining how narratives can be embedded within materials. Through texture, colour, and structure, textiles can reflect personal histories as well as collective cultural experiences.

Over time, I realised that my interest in textiles also carried an ethical dimension. Fabrics do not emerge from nowhere. They are the result of complex systems involving agriculture, industrial production, labour conditions, and environmental resources.

Understanding textiles therefore requires understanding the broader contexts in which they exist.

This awareness became even more significant as I began to examine the environmental consequences of the contemporary fashion industry. The contrast between traditional textile craftsmanship and the accelerated logic of fast fashion revealed a striking tension between two different approaches to making.

One is rooted in time, care, and continuity.

The other prioritises speed, volume, and constant renewal.

Navigating this tension has become central to my research and artistic practice. It requires asking difficult questions about how textiles are produced, consumed, and valued within contemporary culture.

At the same time, it also requires remembering the landscapes that shaped my relationship with materials in the first place.

Florence taught me to recognise beauty.

The countryside taught me to recognise labour.

Textiles, positioned between these worlds, offered a way to think about both.

Through them, I began to explore how art, material culture, and environmental awareness might intersect — not only as abstract concepts but as lived experiences shaped by place, memory, and practice.