Meet: Berenike Corcuera

Berenike Corcuera is a textiles and fibre visual artist who explores spirituality and belonging in her work. She graduated in 2019 from BA Fashion Design with Print at Central Saint Martins (CSM).

Born in Peru, she grew up as a “third culture kid in Brussels to a German mother and Peruvian father”. Her textile craft practice brings about her struggle to identify her geographical and spiritual roots.

Berenike spoke to us about her upcoming exhibitions, as well as her incredible experience at CSM.

You graduated from CSM in 2019. What did you enjoy about studying BA Fashion Design with Print?

I loved the renowned screen print studio with the endlessly long screen print tables and the dye kitchen and other different textile facilities. It’s truly something I miss now, the space, the facilities, machinery and ateliers. I also enjoyed bumping into students and friends on every corner of the second floor, because it provided so much open feedback, conversation and grounding.

In fact, I loved going from the textile facilities and studios back to the fashion and sewing studios, it was like alternating between two worlds. When one got too overwhelming or the work in one atelier was done, I would move into the other and vice versa. The students, teachers and staff were also different in each area, and this provided so much diversity. It provided me with an important bridge and context, both aspects balancing each other out in some way. Fashion Design Print is a pathway that really pushes you to define your priorities. We create the fabric we use to make garments with, which adds a lot more work and consideration. While some pathways play with volume and cut, we worked and developed our textiles on top of that. However, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world, I believe it’s the best pathway on the Fashion course.

What was the highlight of studying at CSM? 

I would say the parties! There were so many because each party was a sort of celebration of Fashion or the end of our projects and creative work, which in a way also became a purpose. Without celebration, Fashion is half as fun and loses its purpose a little. The party highlight was at the end of the year at Natalie’s house, which feels like a museum.

And the Friday evenings at the student bar! It was a way to take the edge off with your classmates and you could always find some teachers there and share a drink with them. It was funny and helped form a community.

What drew you to Fashion Print? 

I chose the pathway because I liked the teachers and their way of thinking, including Nathalie Gibson, who was the founder of the course. I also loved working with the late Patrick Lee Yow who was one of the best pattern cutters I met and one of the best cutting teachers on the course. He had so much incredible knowledge and the way he would teach was very considerate and intelligent. He had a great aptitude for knowing exactly how students worked, when to help them and when to leave them to figure out problems. I learned a lot from him and owe all my cutting skills to his incredible teaching. For me Patrick and Natalie truly were the soul of Fashion Print. I had met them during my Fashion Folio course prior to the BA, and they originally drew me to Fashion Print. There were other great teachers on the course I appreciated too, each one had different advice and way of thinking which made it challenging but interesting. I also think I fit into the course perfectly because of my love for colour, texture, print and cut.

As a textiles and fibre visual artist, you explore spirituality and belonging. Can you tell us more about your work and what led you to it? 

I think, although very different from my large-scale textile work, my early works, specifically the fashion, reveal the same inspirational sources and working methods such as the exploration of spiritual processes and philosophical, cultural or geographical studies. Through my artistic practice I was able to refine that even more and deepen the research and personal aspect, which in design is rather obsolete. In 2019, I went on my first artist residency in two different indigenous communities in Latin America, which led me to develop my curiosity and knowledge on spirituality and mythologies of these communities.

I was born in Peru, and I grew up as a third culture kid in Brussels to a German mother and Peruvian father. I always struggled with Belonging. It's this feeling of never quite being fully this or that nationality or ethnicity but also not being able to easily respond to the question “Where are you from?”. It got more intense through the privilege of studying overseas and having work contracts all over the world, because at some point you don’t quite know where you you’re from or where you’re going. I think my practice mediates my struggle to identify my geographical and spiritual roots. In a way belonging and spirituality are feelings, and each place or situation for me has a different energy so I try to communicate this also in my practice. Belonging is also a search for identity, but strangely spirituality is the loss of identity and connection to higher power, so for me it's a very interesting push and pull because it triggers me.

You’re originally from Peru; does this inspire you in any way, and if so, how?

Indeed. Like I mentioned before, my struggle with Belonging comes from the fact that I left my native country for a different culture and geography and because I rarely go back, it fuels a sense of mysticism in me. For me, Peru as a country has a palpable spiritual presence unlike any I know, but maybe it's my personal connection to it. I also believe that there is a pattern and meaning in the place and time you are born, which is why I love studying Astro cartography. People will always have a different connection to their birth country than any other.

Peru is also a very complex and chaotic country and one that has been altered and transformed a lot. For example, since colonisation, indigenous cultures and cosmologies have died out. Most of the coastal and big towns are of Christian-catholic faith, the one I grew up on but could never fully identify with spiritually. However, there are still remnants of indigenous heritage, especially in the Andean-amazonian culture. But it's also complex, because now this heritage is becoming popular in the west and so it loses its sacredness and becomes commodity.

I try to navigate and document this in my work. I am spiritually and intellectually nourished by culturally rich places in general, but especially Peru. I consider my ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ (2022) exhibition a long line of connective past and future threads, where my movements and changes of scenery have had a great impact on me. Peru is such a culturally, historically and spiritually rich country and the nature is overwhelming.

You’ve created a collection called the Taroracle Book Card Collection; can you tell us more about this?

Just when the Pandemic hit in 2020, I was supposed to move to Paris for a new job at Haider Ackerman and when the borders shut, I found myself at home sitting with this incredible creative freedom of doing what I wanted until things ‘went back to normal again’.

I was selling clothes on Vinted, including a coat I’d made in 2017. I’d made and sewn ‘The Lovers’ Tarot card on to the back of it during my holidays, just because I loved decorating my clothes. I posted it on the site for quite a high price and received so much feedback and love from it, that I decided to not sell it. I unpicked the card from the coat, re-embellished it further and finished it off as an artwork.

The idea came mainly because I wanted to study and understand the Tarot better, so I wanted to study each card and then reinterpret it for myself in a more contemporary way. The longer the ‘two weeks to slow the spread’ went on, the more time I had to make more cards.

At the end of 2020, I was approached by 2 curators to participate in a group exhibition in Copenhagen, and they requested a few of my tarot cards. They received a lot of interest from clients and the feedback was so positive, that I was put on commission by the gallery to continue the collection. From there came the vision to build a collection of cards and I worked on this until 2022. Art Collector and then owner of luxury vintage shop ‘Holly Golightly’ bought a series set of Taroracle Cards and hung it as permanent collection in her shop. It was a great achievement for me to see the cards resting there and I have to say I truly loved this project.

What are you working on now?

I am currently an artist in residence in Brussels, completing new large-scale textile artworks about a developing project on water. I am also on commission to create and design a costume for a performance artist and dancer in Brussels. I am also excited for a few group exhibitions coming up at the end of September and October, one of them being at Centrale for contemporary art Brussels.

Connect with Berenike:

• Website: berenikecorcuera.art
• Instagram: @berenikecorcuera