Tania Candiani's Bordadora (2012): the intersecting histories of religion and women's labor in Mexico

Tania Candiani's 2012 work Bordadora invites participants to whisper secrets in one of three confessional booths and then uses voice recognition software and an embroidery machine with Computer Numerical Control programming to stitch those secrets onto a tapestry in graffiti style lettering. The work was created for Laboratorio Arte Alameda for the solo show Cinco variaciones de circunstancias fonicas y una pausa (Five Variations on Phonic Circumstance and a Pause). The Laboratorio is a new media art space housed in a former convent that was a site for public executions during the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico from 1596-1771, and the use of religious iconography in Candiani's work indicates that Bordadora is referencing the history of the building. Because of the site specificity of the work and the explicit social commentary in Candiani's oeuvre, the symbolism of the industrial embroidery machine and confessional booths in Bordadora function as a critique of textile manufacturing and