Over the past two years, my practice has evolved towards new perspectives in photography, with a growing focus on textiles and archives. This shift has led me towards a more research-based approach, exploring new territories where photography, textile and archival materials intersect. Through this evolving practice, I develop works that bring these mediums into dialogue, exploring new ways of engaging with memory, heritage and transmission.

Khartoum, Echoes Of The Screens

Tracing the Memory of Sudanese Cinema Through Photography and Textiles
5 Tapestries 1,25 × 1,50 m (H × W)

‘Sudanese cinema is marked by a remarkable richness of vision, form and expression. Through photography and textiles, I seek to preserve the fragile beauty of this cinematic heritage and honour the memories of the people, places and artists who kept Sudanese cinema alive.’

Frédérique Cifuentes

This body of work brings together my original photographs and archival images of iconic Sudanese films, printed onto fabric and transformed through appliqué, embroidery and stitching into large-scale textile tapestries, 1.25 × 1.50 m (H × W). Each work has its own textile rhythm, layering images, fragments, Arabic words and patterns to create a fabric of memory. By moving photography into the realm of textiles, I introduce texture, colour, poetry and touch, allowing the stories held within each image to take on a new material form.

Murmures du Léman

14 photographs on fabric with embroidery, 70h x 50w cm

Murmures du Léman is a photographic project that blends archives, textile art, and contemporary photography to explore the history of the Évian Accords in 1962, which lead to the end of the Algerian War and the Algerian independence. It seeks to uncover buried memories, highlighting the invisibility of historical traces, the lake’s silent role as a witness, and the ongoing resonance of these events. Through subtle, poetic imagery, the project invites contemplation, allowing history to surface in the landscape’s silences and echoes.

Butterflies
Weaving Life’s Tapestry in Kew

2  fabric panels with appliqués, 70h x 50w cm

Butterflies
Weaving Life’s Tapestry in Kew is a deeply personal exploration of family, memory and the passage of time, rooted in my two-decade relationship with my in-laws and the life they built in Kew.

One chapter is dedicated to my late father-in-law’s passion for butterflies. Although I never had the opportunity to discuss his collection with him, I discovered its extent after his passing. Approaching it from my own perspective, I wanted to pay tribute to his collection, his garden and the house that had held so many memories.

For me, the butterfly embodies our attraction to light and the things we cherish and hold close. I expressed these feelings through textile panels depicting fabric butterflies, which I displayed in the garden just days before the house was sold, marking the end of a chapter and the disappearance of a place that would never be quite the same again.