25 Memoranden
by Francisca Silva

Editing & Text: Stephanie Rebonati
Book design: Teo Schifferli
Published by Edition Patrick Frey, 2017
ISBN: 978-3-906803-45-6

[an excerpt from the accompanying text]:

In 2015, at her first solo show at Zürich’s Hermann Germann Contemporary gallery, Silva’s suspended bed sheets were studies in pain. Sublime pain spreading as silently as fog when something comes to an end. The paintings were as loud as ever, to be sure, the letters sharp and clear, the colors sprayed on in lavish sweeping gestures. And yet their content weighed heavy. They hung innocently from the ceiling, in a staggered arrangement spread out liberally in the exhibition space, making showgoers feel they’d wandered into a multicolored labyrinth.

I’M THE CODE BETWEEN YOUR LEGS

IF IT’S NOT YOU / I GO HOME

CAN’T FEEL

The handwritten words on linen were the result of a struggle that Silva had waged with herself. She struggled to drive out demons. And she won. She left the battlefield victorious, even calling herself “Samurai” for a while, and tattooed the words “POET OF YOUR HEART” on her neck. For she had discovered words, language. She’d already been writing for some time, but this was the first time she made her fragile and yet brutal lines public. She tore the pain out of her soul – and wrapped it in rap.

I’M THE MASTER WITH THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN TOWN

I GOT YOUR SEX UNDER MY BEAT

BIG FRA GIVES IT TO YOU FRESH