Quilts and memories go together — the varied scraps of fabric forming a harmonious, scrapbook-like whole. In 2015, when Goa-based artist and writer Savia Viegas was sorting through her late mother’s belongings, she came upon such a quilt. Heavy with embroidery and mould, it told stories of her past, her family, and her village, Carmona, in South Goa. Her mother, Berta Elisa Viegas, had made it from old pairs of jeans that Savia had had discarded or collected. “The motifs she used [roses, tigers, people] were part of my childhood. They were the stories of my family, which I grew up listening to,” she shares.
Later, during the pandemic, Savia, 66, picked up the quilt once more. This time, she was inspired to create something new — as a tribute to her mother. Ten hand-embroidered pieces that she created over the next 18 months, on one-foot-by-one-foot pieces of denim, are now part of an ongoing exhibition titled Carmona’s Talking Quilt — along with paintings, photo montages, and upcycled pieces of her mother’s quilt that she crocheted together. The embroidered panels are like storyboards, each telling a tale of caution or good counsel from Savia’s life and that of the village. We spot one about a father-daughter relationship and another on a transgender couple, titled Gaby you be Beleza! “They were not outliers; they were part of the community,” she recalls.
