Two Claws that Make an Egg

Ever since Ariadna Guiteras became a mother, the IG algorithm keeps showing her construction games for building children’s forts. Inspired by those games, Two Claws That Make an Egg is based on a modular structure that can convert into both a refuge and a trap.

This structure—that is simultaneously both house and body—is topped by a patchwork fabric roof and walls made of second-hand clothing. This Frankenstein covering is sewn according to traditional quilting patterns and transforms the clothing (which formerly protected a single body) into a collective coat made of many scraps, generating a tense coexistence of the violence of cutting and the tenderness of mending.

Accompanying the structure are five collages that Guiteras made in collaboration with her daughter Bruc. The artist begins these drawings with a central structure—a house, a ladder, a circle—and Bruc draws on top of that foundation. Once the drawings are finished, Bruc cuts them as she pleases, and Guiteras reconstructs them based on the blank spaces, colors, or paper type.