Ramona web, El paisaje patagónico es parte de mi paisaje interior, Viviana Fischler, 2011

Isabel de Laborde "The Patagonian landscape is part of my inner landscape"

The skin is the  most sensitive and extended organ we human beings have. The act of touching complements and intensifies perceptions felt through our other senses, and are transmitted  to our inner self , to be translated into subjective language, thus giving shape to the world around us in a unique manner. The exhibition Cordón Vegetal expresses this connectivity between the individual and his or her surroundings. A unique and original relationship we find in each human being on this planet.  

  The sequence in which the Works are displayed at the CCR, suggest a spiritual itinerary, evoquing in us, not only the boundless landscapes of the Argentine south, but also the life harbored and nestled in it. Allowing us to experience the way we inter relate with it all. What is veiled and reveiled. A live landscape that pulses, breathes, and sounds, whose cold temperatures turn warm and sheltering through the magic we find in Isabel de Laborde’s Works. Her ouvre is the product of a refined observation, respect and affection towards nature. Something that becomes apparent in the noble and fair treatment of the materials used, to which the wisdom of time has been added, to be decanted in a fusion of forms and colors, thus creating bi and tri-dimentional languages.  

The walls of the exhibition chamber vested with a series of Works in paper and canvas, on which we find serigraphy and frottage, inks and painting, contribute to create an illusion of a boundless context upon which we can tell of the traces of a landscape that disappears in the distance. It is within this figurative space that the artist has placed her vegetal cord, symbolized in a set of sculptures created with pieces of tree trunks, burnt or drowned. Some, found during her long exploring walks, and others brought to her door by her Patagonian neibours. Pieces of what once were trees: willows, poplars, lengas, cypress, and pines, have been keenly sandpapered and polished. Some, painted and guilded, or worked upon with stucco and caustic agents. Others, inlaid with colorful biomorphic figures, in enameled ceramics.  Carvings that seem to have come back to life, through the love and artistry with which the magic hands of the artist have treated the Wood; something that Isabel de Laborde no doubt achieves in an exquisite, delicate sensibility, and subtleness capable of transporting us to Patagonia. . .and our inner self. Nevertheless, this is only a part of her message rendered though her works. The other part completing her message is far away from this figurative space, some fifteen hundred kilometers away, in a real dimension. This is where we find two plantations, of an hexagonal shape, of 90 trees each, planted by the artist and her husband, to honor their parents. And that will be donated to people who:”have or will have in the future a bond of affection with them and with the cycles of life, forming a grand vegetal cord, as well as an umbilical cord to mother earth”  
Its aim is to achieve an awareness towards  the environment – in this case, the Patagonian landscape, endeavoring to reach a spiritual dimension, leading us to think about preserving nature, and how crucial it is for the continuation of life on this planet.  An issue of great urgency due to current setbacks deeply affecting the environment, with dire consequences for the region if we Argentines should not get involved. A good example is the first steps taken by citizens of each of the affected cities, who, with a deep commitment to their communities, have carried out during these last days, cleaning campaigns to remove the ashes spread by the eruption of the Puyehue volcano, inside of the Chilean territory.

The Patagonian landscape, as with the subjective landscape in ourselves, is apparently of an unlimited immensity.To travel through it also represents the adventure of going through our own inner self, a road that leads us to a redefining of ourselves. As from that new being, we perceive ourselves as a whole together with the nature surrounding us.  In its vastness, it is possible to recuperate the sounds and the replenishment which turn us into being more aware of the connection between the natural and the universal, as well as being able to gauge the importance this awareness has for us. Before the Patagonian dreams and promises may remain buried, and can continue to live in each one of the inhabitants, in each Argentine citizen, in each one of us.