En route Project – Vatican Apostolic Library

The advocate of irreducibility

This passage delves into the challenge of narrating the stories of six women who, beginning in the 1880s, left their hometowns in England, Scotland, and the United States to embark on solo journeys. They defied societal expectations and the sarcastic skepticism about their endeavors. The women represented a mix of backgrounds—working-class and aristocratic, journalists, and some of the first women graduates from top English universities—united by their challenge to patriarchal norms and their determination to assert their rights and autonomy.

The passage highlights the difficulties these women faced in a world that doubted their capabilities, especially as it related to their gender. They fought against prevailing attitudes, religious positions, academic norms, tradition, anthropology, and even biology and medicine, as some specialists wondered whether cycling would lead to physical and psychological impairments for women.

The key challenge here is to tell these stories in a contemporary manner, resisting the risk of reducing them to mere historical accounts, as the curators of the exhibition and the Vatican Library’s heritage would have focused on the historical-documentary perspective. The goal is to revive the spirit of their journeys, rather than just the events and their outcomes. The focus is on how these women navigated their worlds with a sense of defiance and resilience.

Choosing an artist to capture this spirit, it becomes clear that it must be someone for whom the role of women in history is both urgent and vital. Maria Grazia Chiuri is selected for this task due to her deeply ingrained feminist commitment, which transcends being merely an option, but is a profound expression of how she perceives and interprets the world. Chiuri’s feminist philosophy, encapsulated in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “We Should All Be Feminists” statement, resonates as an invitation to a new perspective—a call to explore and challenge established norms and viewpoints.

Her work as a Creative Director allows her to construct a critical space for reflection and discussion on the value of fashion in contemporary culture. She emphasizes a multifaceted approach, enriching her work with collaborations from artisans, authors, and artists with each new project, enabling female voices to be heard more profoundly.

The deconstruction of the male gaze in Chiuri’s work is diverse and refuses to fit into a single category. She creates a vision of a woman who is delicate, like the flowers covering her, yet can also be armored, like a warrior. At times, she is as essential and pure as a Greek goddess, with a strikingly sophisticated or youthful face, unapproachable or confidently modern. Chiuri’s woman can be both arcane and hypermodern—each portrayal a new surprise, each time challenging the notion of what it means to be a woman.

In Chiuri’s hands, the woman becomes an unpredictable figure, eluding masculine definitions, constantly slipping between categories and resisting them all. Her art affirms the woman’s irreducibility—her humanity, and her claim to be seen for who she is, beyond gender and expectations.

Imterview with Maria Grazia Chiuri and Karishma Swali

by Giacomo Cardinali

Close your eyes and imagine. We are in the Barberini Room of the Vatican Library, which hosts the site-specific installation, created by Maria Grazia Chiuri and realized by the Chanakya School of Craft of Karishma Swali, telling the story of six women who, during the height of the Victorian era, defied every taboo and social restriction by traveling around the world alone. I ask you: where did you start for this work? What was the place or the stimulus, the initial inspiration? What moved you?

MGC: This project was definitely very stimulating because it made us reflect on the aspect of clothing and its evolutions, or rather, I would say on the possibility of change that clothing offers. I don’t think it’s about modifications driven by functional needs, but rather a true epochal change that happened within the people themselves. We have always been interested in the evolution of fashion, which is a global conversation and always very connected to travel. Also, I believe that what characterizes a journey is certainly the discovery of new places, but also the contact with different realities, and I’m convinced that all of this can be told through fabrics and embroidery, as we have done in this room.

KS: For us, “En route” has been a special and passionate collaboration celebrating the stories of these six women, each of whom, through her journey, opened a unique perspective on the world. I think of Nellie Bly, who traveled around the world in 72 days, bringing only one dress and a bag, redefining the conventions of her time, the way a woman should travel or dress. In their wake, a global dialogue emerged on certain issues.

MGC: I believe this project has been particularly stimulating for us because, by illustrating the journeys of these women, we have in fact told our own personal journeys—those that Karishma and I undertake in our work, dedicated to study and research. In this project at the library, we had the opportunity to show the public, even exhibit, our documentation and reflection process, giving it more emphasis than the final product, as typically happens in the normal creative process of fashion. “En route” is, therefore, for us also a way to unveil how much study and research lie behind a collection, and the intricate languages that intersect in fashion.

And in fact, this is what most surprised me in our joint work. Last June, you arrived here to present your proposal, exactly as a scholar would, with notebooks, notes, books read, and maps. You had an entire trolley full of paper documentation, and I remember the clear impression that in that moment, any form of distance disappeared. It’s not exactly what you would expect when meeting a creative director: you would never imagine that they’ve followed the same path as you.

MGC: Actually, this process is something we always apply. There is a design research aspect in what Karishma and I do—a study that takes place in libraries, in books, but also through the artifacts we find—eventually leading to a synthesis in the collection. However, it is often difficult to articulate. This project at the Vatican was a unique opportunity to do so because there were so many affinities, and it reflects an approach that has always been part of our work. Very often, I think this is the case (laughs): we don’t always know how to explain it. We’re better at doing it than telling it!

A question from an outsider, just to understand better. Has this “research-based” approach always been part of your work? Did it develop at a certain point, or did you adopt it from somewhere? Is it common in your field?

MGC: I believe there are personal aspects involved, but also a sense of maturity and familiarity between us, as we have been working together for many years. And that is also the beauty of our journey, which we began together so many years ago. Perhaps this exhibition has given us a rare opportunity to synthesize this journey, which started back in 1992!

KS: For me, it’s the joy of the process! From start to finish, we are always immersed in a process, and I am always aware of being a part of something much larger. This project is also a celebration of community because the world of craft, the textile world, is inherently communal—it is about being a small part of something much bigger, something deeply organic. In the end, there is the joy of losing oneself and finding oneself again, and that is personally the aspect that inspires me the most. One of “our women,” Agnes Smith Lewis, had a Latin inscription on her door: lampada tradam, which means “to pass the torch.” Perhaps that is the true spirit of what we are doing, also with the Chanakya School of Craft and the Chanakya Foundation—preserving the preciousness of community. It gives me, and all of us, a profound sense of purpose.

MGC: Yes, it definitely makes sense!

Continue reading the interview in the exhibition catalogue, available for purchase at our Bookshop or on the Antiga Edizioni website.