History written on bedsheets
History written on bedsheets (2019) politicizes intimate affairs as History. This work centers the bed as a site where power is negotiated at its most basic level. In turn, bedsheets are the soft pages of a history book, registering the untold stories of women’s bodies.
This series applies image-making as a haptic and sensuous process. Made in the home of Ecuadorian families, this work combines the gifted bedsheets, the frottage technique, coffee grounds and seven historic bed frames. By rubbing coffee grounds with my hands over the sheets, the pigment imprints an image of the bed frame appearing from underneath. Coffee, which desecrates the bedsheets, participates as a sculptural element in the installation of this work.
![Zoila’s Bed, 2019 Coffee rubbing of Zoila’s bed, where she found her husband with another woman and died giving birthDocumentation of working site, Guayaquil, Ecuador](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2e19a0c13a81b0eb43668720348a378b297c5ece5ed6775897954a39de4b7838/05_HWB_1_Astro.jpg)
![Detail - Zoila’s Bed, 2019 Coffee rubbing of Zoila’s bed, where she found her husband with another woman and died giving birthDocumentation of working site, Guayaquil, Ecuador](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f415f795d253722d679c4919b4567e2d8ae053cad4aed1ee7443ad8ab4218917/05_HWB_2_Astro.jpg)
![Matilde’s Bed, 2019 Coffee rubbing of Matilde’s bed, where she said goodbye to General Ulpiano, before he got dragged by angry mobs](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b9baacb5b18d1662e1a72bfd7a450e1d444f408b731cd74eee96d68fc86d7563/05_HWB_3_Astro.jpg)
![Documentation of working site - Paula’s Bed, 2019 Frottage process, materials and tool](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ec261584de6a4a2b255f9aa76658847c482f2516c7eafa973c6434f7f3986385/05_HWB_4_Astro.jpg)
![History is written on bedsheets, 2019 Images of historic Ecuadorian bed frames imprinted onto bed sheets with coffee](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/db823c611bec20dd5ee2205b73d19feec1b96532ae2c59af4994971fa3a81a8f/05_HWB_5_Astro.jpg)
Exhibitions
Defiance To Power
Justice Hotel, Chicago, 2019
Curated by Erika Ordosgoitti and Carlos Salazar-Lermont
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a56441617a6e51a7b916b8dad62f92b1e1c26cfd5cf89e55366baed30b22dc72/05_HWB_7_Astro.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/88ac7b6e4d9bfd1386cd3de1877f4995df045568cad528b011683c5af7cd1775/05_HWB_6_Astro.jpg)
Aftermaths
Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, 2021
Curated by Jameson Paige
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/34010a2b104db5566a3e94b64a5f4990abc82e5523d11981593c181fb3c7eab9/05_HWB_9_Astro.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/59d52ab527c1451755c9110198c812c808e5623aa1f4d4fa09457d7cb23ba642/05_HWB_8_Astro.jpg)