“I hope my work can be a companion to those who experienced sexual violence”: Afra Eisma

Visitors to Fort Kochi volition spot a alternatively antithetic installation connected the archetypal level of the Dutch Warehouse. Large cushiony dolls successful vivid colours are placed playfully connected plushy carpets. Dutch creator Afra Eisma done the installation, ‘Hush’, invites viewers to prosecute with the enactment — beryllium a while, snuggle with the dolls if you must. It is each astir connection, she says. 

Showcased by The Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, the show, Mild Tooth of Milk, is simply a 2 portion enactment — Hush and Warrior Garments — that defines Eisma’s intensely political, yet emotionally charged practice. 

While ‘Hush’ is simply a mosaic of brushed carpets, ceramics and textiles dispersed crossed the level of the country successful a tactile tapestry, ‘Warrior Garments’, has agelong dresses successful silk and organza, with hand-painted substance moving done them. 

Nominated for Volkskrant Visual Art Prize 2026 (a prestigious creation grant for artists nether 35, who unrecorded oregon enactment successful the Netherlands), 33-year-old Eisma was astatine the forefront of a #metoo campa ign successful the Netherlands that sought to exposure the intersexual unit and exploitation successful the creation world. 

Edited excerpts from an interview.

There is comfortableness amid the large, brushed beings successful the installation, ‘Hush’. Where did the thought stem from?

The thought for ‘Hush’ grew retired of a request to make spaces of information and care. At the halfway of the accumulation is my signifier of processing idiosyncratic trauma done making, peculiarly trauma connected to gender-based unit and the bodily aftermath of this. The rubric of the enactment ‘Hush’ refers to breathing which became a starting point. Breathing is some intimate and powerful: a simple, bodily enactment that tin calm the tense strategy and reconnect assemblage and mind. From there, the soft, oversized beings emerged arsenic carnal manifestations of comfort, protection, and communal support.

They are imagined companions, otherworldly beings designed to hold, carry, and ticker implicit 1 another, modelling the benignant of attraction I judge is indispensable for healing. The standard and tactility of the works are intentional. By making the figures large, soft, and enveloping, the enactment invites visitors to dilatory down, region their shoes, and participate a abstraction that feels non threatening and generous. ‘Hush’ yet stems from a tendency to alteration symptom into a shared, gentle environment, 1 wherever vulnerability is allowed, enactment is noticed, and comfortableness becomes a corporate acquisition alternatively than a solitary one.

How would you picture your creator process?

My creator process begins from emotion alternatively than from signifier oregon concept. Feelings, particularly those that are often considered uncomfortable, specified arsenic anger, grief, fear, oregon ambiguity are treated arsenic sources of interior spot and knowledge. I enactment precise intuitively, allowing experiences, bodily sensations, memories, conversations, and activistic engagements to dilatory sediment into images, textures, and characters. Making is simply a mode of processing: by moving with my hands, I tin think, feel, and merchandise astatine the aforesaid time. My enactment is precise labour-intensive due to the fact that of the trade techniques I use, and the time, energy, and emotion invested successful the making process are carried into the enactment and felt backmost by those who brushwood it.

The process is non-linear and relational. Ideas determination backmost and distant betwixt sketchbooks, doodles, writings, textiles, ceramics, sound, and spatial arrangements. A being mightiness archetypal look arsenic a tiny drawing, past instrumentality arsenic a ceramic object, and aboriginal turn into a large-scale tapestry you tin beryllium with oregon thin against. I’m funny successful however motifs migrate and transform, overmuch similar emotions do. Nothing exists successful isolation; each enactment justifies and nourishes the others.

Craft is cardinal to however I work. Techniques similar tufting, sewing, and hand-building ceramics are slow, repetitive, and physical, which allows abstraction for reflection and for emotions to surface. The labour itself is portion of the meaning—sometimes stitches go “angry,” sometimes forms go brushed and protective. Bright colors and playful aesthetics are deliberately utilized to attack darker experiences gently, making abstraction for care, generosity, and invitation alternatively than confrontation.

Ultimately, the process expands outward into the accumulation space. I deliberation of installations arsenic environments of hospitality: places that clasp visitors, promote rest, conversation, and togetherness. Audience information is not an afterthought but an hold of the work’s ethics. My process feels implicit erstwhile the enactment becomes a shared acquisition wherever it opens country for connection, reflection, and communal care.

You person been vocal astir intersexual unit and trauma. Survival runs arsenic an undercurrent done your work. You are besides creating spaces for viewers to process their ain trauma. Does creation amusement the mode to healing?

I don’t deliberation creation shows the mode to healing, arsenic if determination is 1 wide way oregon solution. For me, creation offers a mode wherever healing tin begin, pause, oregon simply beryllium held. Making enactment helps maine process experiences that are excessively analyzable oregon achy to explicit successful connection yet. Through slow, labour-intensive trade and repetition, emotions determination done my assemblage and into material, and that successful itself is simply a signifier of healing.

Sometimes healing starts simply by not being unsocial with what you carry. I anticipation my enactment tin beryllium a companion to those who experienced intersexual violence.

Being a subsister of intersexual unit tin beryllium profoundly isolating, and that isolation tin beryllium dangerous. By intelligibly addressing this acquisition and naming that my enactment is made particularly for those who person lived done it, I anticipation to unfastened a abstraction wherever radical consciousness harmless capable to recognise themselves, to consciousness little alone, and to statesman normalising conversations astir this topic.

Are the playful beings successful your enactment inspired by idiosyncratic oregon thing from childhood?

They are not straight inspired by circumstantial characters oregon figures from my childhood, but they bash link to a childlike mode of imagining and relating to the world. I wanted to make beings that tin connection the warmth of a hug without being excessively human. Sometimes we agelong to beryllium held oregon comforted, but human-to-human interaction tin consciousness analyzable oregon overwhelming. By keeping these figures somewhat otherworldly, they let for a antithetic benignant of intimacy, 1 wherever you stay afloat successful power of however overmuch closeness oregon interaction you want.

I americium funny successful the openness children often have, their quality to invent companions, to determination fluidly betwixt phantasy and reality, and to attack dense emotions done play. These beings relation a spot similar imaginary friends: they tin clasp hard feelings without becoming overwhelming.

At the aforesaid time, they are precise overmuch shaped by my big experiences. The playfulness is intentional arsenic it creates an introduction constituent that feels gentle and non-threatening. So portion the figures whitethorn echo puerility imagination, they’re truly astir creating a shared, caring connection successful the contiguous which is 1 that makes country for vulnerability, protection, and connection.

What inspires you arsenic a idiosyncratic and artist?

I americium profoundly influenced by lit and writers who ideate alternate ways of being and relating, specified arsenic Meenakshi Thirukode, Sara Ahmed, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Audre Lorde. Their reasoning helps maine recognize emotions arsenic political, collective, and transformative forces. I americium besides inspired by the artists astir maine like: Karin Iturralde Nurnberg, Marnix van Uum, Afrah Shafiq, and Buhlebezwe Siwani arsenic good arsenic by those who came before, including Ovartaci, Dorothy Iannone, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and Mrinalini Mukherjee.

What inspires maine astir is connection: betwixt people, materials, emotions, and shared ways of imagining however we mightiness clasp and attraction for 1 another.

How would you picture your prime of material? How overmuch of a relation does worldly play successful your process?

Materials are cardinal to my practice, they are not lone vessels for ideas, but progressive elements of the work. I take agleam colours of yarns, textiles, glazes for ceramics, and different tactile materials for their physicality and responsiveness; each worldly has its ain weight, texture, and rhythm. The softness of cloth allows for intimacy and touch, ceramics clasp signifier portion carrying a consciousness of fragility, and colour becomes a mode to usher emotion and attention.

What did you consciousness astir the abstraction successful Kochi? Did the abstraction lend to your work?

The abstraction successful Kochi is beautiful, but it besides carries a weighty history. The Dutch Warehouse, with its assemblage past, reminded maine of however spaces are ne'er neutral. They clasp layers of power, displacement, and memory. Soft, caring, and playful forms entered a tract shaped by histories of power and extraction. Because the Dutch Warehouse is located successful the bosom of Fort Kochi, curator Arnika Ahldag and I felt it was important to make a abstraction that encouraged gathering, lingering, and informal encounters. This aligns with however I privation my installations to function: arsenic sites of care, reflection, and transportation that talk some to idiosyncratic and governmental histories.

What are your upcoming projects?

At the moment, I person started enactment for the Kinderbiennale (Children’s Biennale) astatine the Groninger Museum, alongside respective different upcoming exhibitions. A portion of the presumption astatine the Dutch warehouse volition question to MAP successful Bengaluru, which means I volition travel backmost to India successful spring.

Mild Tooth of Milk volition beryllium connected amusement astatine the Dutch Warehouse successful Fort Kochi till March 31.