top of page
PAOLA MONDOLFI
Artist & Designer
“Take The Absence of Fear”
Statement
“Take the Absence of Fear” is a manifesto of resistance in the subtle. This small chair, woven with white threads and embroidered with a bold statement in red, encapsulates the paradox of fragility as strength, of smallness as a subversive act.
The textile intervention transforms the chair into a symbolic space where the absence of fear materializes. The meticulous and patient white weaving suggests protection and reconstruction, binding the vulnerable with the resilient. The red-embroidered phrase—Take the Absence of Fear—becomes an affirmation of the right to be, to exist without fear. The loose threads hanging from the letters evoke both the continuity of struggle and the delicacy of something that, though seemingly unfinished, is inherently strong.
This work engages with the redefinition of scale as both a political and poetic act. In a world that exalts the monumental as a symbol of power, this piece claims the potency of the small, the intimate, and the meticulous. Like so many invisible struggles that uphold larger structures, unpaid labor, everyday resistance, the memory of those who came before. This chair embodies the radical gesture of existing without fear.
The work demands presence, a shift in perspective that compels us to see differently. In its reduced scale, “Take the Absence of Fear” challenges the notion that impact must be measured in magnitude. It reminds us that courage is not always loud or visible on a grand scale, but rather found in the smallest gestures, in silent persistence, in the absence of fear as a form of resistance
Title: ”Take the Absence of Fear.”
Artist: Paola Mondolfi.
Year: 2025.
Medium: Doll wood vintage chair, handwoven cotton threads, embroidered text in red thread. Dimensions: 20 x 7 x 7 Inch.
bottom of page