Weaving Webs: When Migrant Brujas Become Spiders
by
María Andreína Escalona De Abreu and Florencia Marchetti
In a shifting, aching world where conservative forces are on the rise, we, a network of migrant women artists and cultural workers called Las Brujas, choose to gather, unite, and bring joyful moments of collectivity into existence.1 Our network is woven by women who share a history of migration, an orientation towards art, and a common base in the lands and waters known as Tiohtiá:ke-Mooniyang-Montreal, Canada. Our first aquelarre (coven) was convened at the home of artist Helena Martin Franco in June 2022. Moved by a profound need to reconnect with other women in a post-pandemic context, Helena proposed that in-person meetings should become a guiding principle for our network. She was inspired by Sayak Valencia's (2016) philosophy and by the conviction that, as feminist movements have shown time and time again, “bodies can do a lot, if they are united.”
In this article, we describe a series of creative acts that unfolded collaboratively as part of an art exhibit, red red réseaux, which opened on September 25, 2025, and closed on November 2, 2025, at Le Livart, a multidisciplinary art center in Montréal.2 The exhibition was created at the intersection of art and activism, and featured immigrants’ and women’s bodies in public spaces. In a clever play on words, the exhibition’s title was trilingual: red means both network in Spanish and red in English, and réseaux is the French word for networks. The exhibition was collectively designed as a physical and conceptual labyrinth curator María Andreína Escalona De Abreu and participant artists from Las Brujas.3 The labyrinth occupied the entire gallery, connecting all the spaces by a common thread in the form of a red net or spider’s web constructed in situ. Together, we formed a web of creative resistance, performing ancestral practices while inventing new healing rituals.
We connected through symbolic and material red threads, weaving yarn and recycled fabrics into nets, threading collective worldings made of migration stories, words written, meditated, sung, and read out loud, craft work, tears, sweat, blood, soil, and memories.
Telarañas: Crocheted Pieces by Sarabeth Triviño
Invitations to participate in the exhibition at Le Livart were sent to the artists with very clear directions from the curator: create eco-friendly new artworks specifically for the gallery that would facilitate collaboration, participation, and performance. Mostly crocheted by “mother spider” Sarabeth Triviño, with assistance from the curator and the artists, the textile works were made from materials the artists already possessed or from old clothes repurposed into yarn in the months prior to the exhibition. They included four crocheted nets, many yards of braids, a pair of long sleeves, and many repurposed, pre-used pairs of pantyhose that were dyed and filled with soil. The works were intuitively created in symbiosis, each intertwined with the next; they crawled through the rooms of the Livart, like furtive, dissident creatures.
Testing the ruka-inspired4 net for the reading nook room to envelop the visitors and invite them to read the suspended texts. Crocheted by Sarabeth Triviño and the curator. Photo taken by Pamela Rodríguez Gaspar.
A mandala created by Sarabeth Triviño for the end of the performance by Colectiva Tribu. Photo taken by Pamela Rodríguez Gaspar.
“Somos tierra que anda”: Performance by Helena Martin Franco and Las Brujas
The first day of red red réseaux was dedicated not to installation but to performance. Summoned by the artist Helena Martin Franco, seven participants (including some of the exhibiting artists and other members of the network)5 arrived at the gallery ready to strip down to intimate clothing and become Elephant Women.6 They were accompanied by photographers Andrea Calderón Stephens and Adriana Garcia-Cruz, also members of the network, and by the curator who alternated as videographer and performer.
Their performance was inspired by the phrase “El hombre es tierra que anda” (“Man is walking land”) by Atahualpa Yupanqui. Helena proposed that “The artists put on stockings filled with potting soil. The artist becomes plant. The plant walks. The artist migrates. The soil walks. The soil migrates. The plant becomes artist.” In the intimacy of the closed-door gallery, the space was transformed into a bedroom, a playground, and each participant became their own version of the character Helena had been developing for years. We transformed into a collective landscape, a mountain in movement, a body-territory that embraced and carried generational and migratory heritages, embodying both sorrow and resilience. The documentation of the 1-hour-15-minute collective performance was then exhibited as a video loop along with nine printed photos.
Performance “Somos tierra que anda” that took place in Le Livart during the installation of the exhibition. Photo taken by María Andreína Escalona Abreu.
Sarabeth Triviño and Helena Martin Franco working together on the collaborative piece in the main space of the gallery. The artwork is composed of a crocheted spider’s web and repurposed tights (some dyed by hand) filled with dirt and attached with thread, which had been used in the “Somos tierra que anda” performance. Photo taken by María Andreína Escalona Abreu.
“Apañe mestizo”: Performance by Colectiva Tribu
La Colectiva Tribu was in charge of the evening’s opening act. The public was invited to join the collective in the first room of the gallery space. The lights were dimmed, and the soundtrack transported the audience into a womb-like state. The performers lay on a mound of soil, with their eyes closed. Were the women’s bodies going back to where they came from, “earth to earth” or simply resting? Those of us gathered around them could feel the scene’s serene power.
The evocative tableau shifted as the women slowly rose from their slumber. They took their time leaving the woven matrix, making their red threads into balls to carry with them. As they began to walk away, the public could see that their connection to the womb-like net had not been severed. They walked slowly, traversing the exhibit rooms. The public was asked to follow them into the main gallery space.
Photo taken by Katya Konioukhova during the performance of Colectiva Tribu on September 25, 2025.
Photo taken by Katya Konioukhova during the performance of Colectiva Tribu on September 25, 2025.
As the women walked, their threads became entangled. People helped them so they could continue their journey. The performers carried not only their balls of red thread but also a handful of soil, an elemental indication of where they came from. Once in the gallery, they carefully made eye contact with their audience and chose someone to share soil with. This was an intimate yet communal offering; a moment when a member of the public was trusted to guard something precious, the soil the performers came from, with their own hands, to plant a seed, and collectively sustain growing memories.
Photo taken by Katya Konioukhova during the performance of Colectiva Tribu on September 25, 2025.
The public was then invited to move outside to the patio and encircle a mandala, with each performer standing on one of its points atop a mound of soil. Their silent performance slowly evolved into a spoken-word piece. One by one, the performers’ voices recited lines from Manifesto Cíclicas, calling their ancestral history into contemporary time and space. The last verses united their voices in a formidable statement of belonging to this earth.
Manifiesto Cíclicas: Colectiva Tribu
| Somos mixtura de muchos territorios Cósmicas y guerrilleras De llantos y valentía De gritos y carcajadas |
We are a mixture of many territories Cosmic and guerrilla Of cries and bravery Of screams and laughter |
| Somos historia de piel mestiza Locas y sabias Dulces y revolucionarias Indómitas y profundas |
We are the history of mixed skin Crazy and wise Sweet and revolutionary Untamed and deep |
| Somos el sueño vivo de este y otros tiempos De bailes y cantos De goces y dolores De derrotas y victorias |
We are the living dream of this time and others Of dances and songs Of joys and sorrows Of defeats and victories |
| Florecen en nosotras todas las penas Viven en nosotras la niña, la madre y la abuela |
All sorrows blossom in us Live in us the girl, the mother and the grandmother |
| Somos La voz ahogada de nuestras hermanas La memoria viva de nuestras ancestras La herencia salvaje e hijas soberanas de esta tierra. |
We are The drowned voice of our sisters The living memory of our ancestors The wild heritage and sovereign daughters of this land. |
Photo taken by Katya Konioukhova during the performance of Colectiva Tribu on September 25, 2025.
“Laraña”: Song and Performance by Pilar Escobar
Later in the evening, Pilar Escobar performed Laraña, a song composed and premiered during this gathering, inspired by the Asamblea de Brujas and its spirit of solidarity. Pilar shared the lyrics with the Brujas beforehand so we could join her in singing the chorus. Copies of the lyrics, including translations in French and English, were also distributed amongst the public for those willing to sing along.
Photo taken by Katya Konioukhova during the performance of Pilar Escobar on September 25, 2025.
| ESP Compuesta e interpretada por Pilar Escobar |
ENG Composed and performed by Pilar Escobar |
| Una mañanita x4 Una mañanita la lara laraña Me dice, mijita, andate con maña Si el tejemaneje se pone peludo Vos tenete fino, la red es seguro Ay |
A mornin' x4 A mornin' la lara laraña (the spider) She tells me, sweetie, be careful If things get messy Don't worry, the net is safe Ay |
| *Una mañanita x4 Una mañanita la lara laraña Me dice, mijita, tejele con maña Que si el panorama está chicharronudo La red es la brújula, espacio seguro Que araña lampiña o de pecho peludo Sabe que la red es el mejor augurio x2 |
*A mornin' x4 A mornin' la lara laraña He tells me, sweetheart, weave it wittily That if the landscape gets messy The web is the compass, safe space Whether hairless or hairy-chested spider She knows the web is the best omen x2 |
| (Repite *) | (Repeat *) |
| Somos las perlas x12 | We are the pearls x12 |
| Somos arañas Somos la tela Somos la sarta de perlas Con buenas mañas tejemos marañas Hacemos ecosistemas Del hilo, el alma Somos la esencia Tejemos nuevas conciencias Del hilo, el alma Somos la esencia Red, cobijo y resistencia |
We are spiders We are the web We are the string of pearls With good tricks we weave tangles We create ecosystems From the thread, the soul We are the essence We weave new consciousnesses From the thread, the soul We are the essence Web, shelter, and resistance |
| Ay ay ay ay ay x4 | Ay ay ay ay ay x4 |
| Y si nos tratas con maña Los huevos de laran la araña x5 |
And if you treat us with malice The eggs of the lara laraña x5 |
| Ay ay ay ay ay | Ay ay ay ay ay |
| Ella te araña los huevos x4 | She scratches your balls x4 |
| Ella te araña, ella te araña Ella te araña los huevos Ella te araña, ella te araña Ella te araña los huevos x5 |
She scratches you, she scratches you She scratches your balls She scratches you, she scratches you She scratches your balls x5 |
| **Ella te araña je! x2 Ella te araña los huevos Ella te araña je! x2 Ella te araña los huevos x5 (Repite **) |
**She scratches you je! x2 She scratches your balls She scratches you je! x2 She scratches your balls x5 (Repeat **) |
Photo taken by Katya Konioukhova during the performance of Pilar Escobar on September 25, 2025.
Escrituras lunares y Aquelarre
While the exhibit was being created, Florencia Marchetti extended an open invitation to the Brujas network to take part in a series of writing workshops. She wrote:
Inspired by the covens, workshops, and rituals I had the privilege of participating in this last year, and based on my own research-creation process, I would like to propose a weekly gathering and writing space that will foster communication and collaboration between us, the stars, the here and now, and the hereafter.
Attending to the moon and its transits, to the four primordial elements—water, fire, earth, and air—with a focus rooted in the territory we inhabit and the ancestral memories we carry embodied in the fabric of who we are, I will facilitate breathing and somatic writing exercises that will allow us to tune in with our own tides, the present moment, and the creative intentions we want to germinate during these coming months of darkness. Darkness can be fertile ground, if we know how to inhabit it.
The last three sessions of the writing workshop happened as part of the red red réseaux exhibit at Le Livart, with several network members and the exhibit’s curator participating. Fire and water led us to rituals of release and invocation. Under a Leo moon, we wrote down a short list of the weaker aspects of ourselves we were ready to let go: fear, insecurity, worry, a sense of limits. At the end of this session, after a fire-breathing exercise, we burned these lists in a small intentional pyre.
During another intimate session when the moon was in Scorpio, a water sign, we connected with our intuition and the sensitivity of our tidal bodies. This encounter ended with an invitation to compose and read aloud a list of ingredients in the form of a potion-poem that could support us in times of need: a potion made with water from different places, moments, intergenerational forces, emotions, gestures, family legacies, whatever you’d like to invoke...
The last workshop session was on October 30, a date particularly associated with witchy acts when the veils between material and spiritual worlds are thin. As a closing event for both the workshop series and the exhibit, we decided to hold a large aquelarre, inviting all the Brujas in the network to the gallery space. And so it was that with the moon in Aquarius, the elemental forces of air and collectivity invited us to imagine and play together. Inspired by the creative, spiritual, and material presences in the space, Florencia led a guided meditation, as she did in each workshop session, this time with the intention of grounding and weaving us into the present moment as well as bringing healing to our friends in pain7. In the final portion of the meditation, she invited us to imagine ourselves as spiders.
Meditación Arañas: A Fragment by Florencia Marchetti
What are the networks that sustain us made of? What materials? What kind of gestures and care?
I invite each of you to imagine yourself as a spider and to visualize the networks you belong to, your own constellations. To visualize the moments in your life when you recognize yourself as a spider…
The spider weaves a web in the air, [and] with very few points of support, she spins a home that is at once a hunting ground, a courtship site, a breeding space, and a playground. I invite you to feel the confidence that spiders feel in their ability to produce the very threads that sustain their lives, [and the] strong silky strands that allow them to jump into the void and not fall, but rather, start spinning again. Many of us have taken that kind of leap, perhaps more than once in our lives, throwing ourselves into new lives, from our home countries to this new one where we have become the “others,” the migrants, the accented speakers...
As [with] many spiders, there are some migrants who stay solitary, managing on their own, and there are others, who are super sociable, with incredible organizational skills, spiders who form colonies where care tasks, tactics, and strategies are collectivized and distributed among those who make up the community.
I invite you to feel, as spiders, the strength of our weaving abilities, the capacity we have as creators of nets that allow us to hang and hunt upside down, withstanding wind, rain, and snow. I invite you to sense the light we cast when we allow ourselves to be innovative and celebrate new ways of being together.
Finally, I invite you to continue weaving this network of companionship and mutual care.
If there are knots, let them be knots of support and not knots that tie us up, and if there are tangles, let us help each other to untangle them...
And I leave you with one last question that is an invitation to imagine beyond: What other ways of collaborating, creating, socializing, playing, and imagining could we manifest in the years to come?
***
After the meditation, Natalia Beca Collarte from Colectiva Tribu facilitated a movement practice to the rhythm of fast-paced music. Then Marcela Guzmán, with her ukulele, taught us a beautiful song, “Reverdecer” (an original composition by the duo Perota Chingó). The aquelarre continued with an open mic and more songs sung together, with spoken word, rap, poetry, and dancing to warm our bodies and heal our migrant spirits.
Photo taken by María Andreína Escalona Abreu during the aquelarre on October 30, 2025.
Conclusion
The threads that connect us are infinite and surprising. They transcend time, space, generations, species, and languages, connecting us with our ancestors and their knowledge. They are labyrinthine networks woven by matriarchs, alive like nervous systems; they are mycelia that communicate, guide, traverse, and challenge us. They have saved us, sheltered us, rooted us. They alert us to the pain of our sisters and vibrate to the sound of their laughter and joy. They are red like rage, red like a uterus, safe, cocooning, and sometimes terrifying; they are red like sorority, red like a spider's web.
Our network celebrates those who came before us and those who are no longer with us. It serves as a space for trans, indigenous, migrant, working, and activist women, mothers, and artists to meet and support each other—now and in the future. Our network is a body, a home, our red network of networks—welcome.8
Photo taken by Agatha Lambert during the aquelarre on October 30, 2025.
About The Exhibit
Curator: María Andreína Escalona De Abreu
Artists: Pilar Escobar, Coletiva Tribu (Nat, MaruTribu, Pame y Kako), Helena Martin Franco and Sarabeth Triviño.
Activators: Florencia Marchetti, Natalia Beca Collarte, Marcela Guzmán.
About the Artists
Colectiva Tribu is a collective of immigrant women and feminist dissidents from diverse backgrounds, generations, and walks of life. Their mission is to inspire and mobilize through art and activism, create connections, and give voice to often marginalized realities. Together, they are working towards a future where every woman can live fully and freely. Colectiva Tribu is also committed to promoting spaces for dialogue and reflection. These spaces have allowed other women and dissidents who share their vision and commitment to this common cause to join the collective.
María Andreína Escalona Abreu is a Venezuelan visual artist, writer, curator, and arts worker based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. She obtained a BFA in Fibres and Material Practices at Concordia University in 2022 and has since been developing her curatorial practice with various organizations. She works at the FOFA Gallery as the Exhibition Coordinator and serves on the board of Céline Bureau Residency. Escalona's practice brings together curation, collaborative initiatives, creative writing, textile installations, and handmade paper as ways of dreaming, confabulating, and applying notions of sustainability, community development, and advocacy for equity in the arts. Escalona’s work is a “tough-love” letter to her Venezuelan roots and Canadian present.
Born in Medellín, Colombia, Pilar Escobar grew up surrounded by artists and musicians. Her parents always encouraged her to develop her creativity and maintain a positive outlook, even though the violent context of her country made this difficult. Her studies in music, textiles, ceramics, hairstyling, and dance fostered the hybrid nature of her creations. With a bachelor's degree in fashion design from the Pontificia Bolivariana University in Medellín and a bachelor's degree in visual and media arts from UQAM, Pilar obtained a Master's degree at UQAM in October 2025.
Florencia Marchetti is an Argentinian-born, Montreal-based nomadic thinker-maker. She is a community weaver, a social documentarian, a sensory ethnographer, and a participatory researcher. Her early documentary works are part of a permanent exhibit in Campo de la Ribera, a former clandestine detention and torture center that now houses a site museum and the Provincial Memory Archive repository, both in Córdoba, Argentina. Endlessly curious about the power of culture to imagine and create new pathways for living, she has done research on the different forms social memories can take, exploring the affective power of past experiences in present-day lives. She’s been selected to act as researcher-in-residence at the Dare-Dare Artist Run Centre for the 2026-2027 program: “To Embody: Joyful Militancy and Irresistible Activism.”
Helena Martin Franco was born in Cartagena, Colombia. She has lived and worked in Tiohtiá:ke - Mooniyang - Montreal since 1998. Her transdisciplinary artistic practice engages in dialogues on gender violence, immigration, and censorship in art. She explores the fusion of traditional techniques and new technologies. Through autofiction, she attempts to reveal the permeability of identity boundaries. She is a founding artist of the feminist collectives La Redhada (network of women artists from the Colombian Caribbean), CAVCA (Community of Visual Artists of Cartagena and Bolívar), Las meninas emputás! (a feminist, anti-colonial activist collective in Cartagena), as well as the contemporary art collective L'Araignée in Montreal, Canada, and Las Brujas, a network of Latin American women artists and feminists in Montreal. She currently teaches at the Université de Montréal and is a visual arts specialist for the Ministry of Culture and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec within the framework of the Politique d’intégration des arts à l’architecture et à l’environnement. Winner of the 2018 POWERHOUSE AWARD, she holds a Master's degree in Visual and Media Arts from UQAM, Université du Québec à Montréal.
Sarabeth Triviño is a textile artist of Chilean origin who lives and works in Tio’tia:ke / Montreal. In 2008, she became a professional artisan and member of the Quebec Craft Council. In 2017, she obtained a Bachelor's degree in Visual and Media Arts from the University of Quebec in Montreal and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Fibers and Material Practices at Concordia University. Her textile art practice is inspired by environmental and social issues from a feminist perspective. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries in Montreal, particularly during the Art Souterrain festival, as well as at the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico. Her works can be found in private and public collections, including those of the City of Montreal and the City of Boucherville.
References
Valencia, Sayak Triana. 2016. Capitalismo Gore. Melusina.
1 To read more about the intentional reclamation of the term Brujas see: https://brujasmtl.wordpress.com/.
2 The description that follows is based on the one made public on the gallery’s website.
3 Although this first iteration presented the textile and performance work of three artists and one collective, as well as interventions with the public, red red réseaux is a project that aims to grow and expand.
4 A ruka is the traditional house of the indigenous Mapuche people in Chile and Argentina, important in Sarabeth Triviño’s body of work.
5 With the participation of Flavia Hevia, Kako Navarrete, María Andreína Escalona De Abreu, Marusia Ahumada, Pamela Rodríguez Gaspar, Pilar Escobar A, Veronica Alva.
6 A character drawn from Helena Martin Franco’s repertoire, originally conceived as an exploration of the tortuous, changing, and beautiful experience that is femininity and heartbreak. See: https://fe.helenamartinfranco.com/.
7 One of the network members was in the hospital fighting a serious infection and a couple others were dealing with difficult health conditions at the time of the aquelarre.
8 Adapted from the curatorial text displayed on the walls of Le Livart written by María Andreína Escalona De Abreu.