Artwork
Strategies for Departure Project
Strategies for Departure Project is a print by Cecilia Mandrile. It dates from 1998 and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
About this work
Cecilia Mandrile made *Strategies for Departure Project* in 1998 as a print.
Cecilia Mandrile made *Strategies for Departure Project* in 1998 as a print. It reflects her life as a traveler who left Argentina young. Her work focuses on migrant belongings, especially photos of loved ones.
She travels with dolls she builds from photos of her own face. Each doll carries small objects that mark the places she’s stayed. The dolls become symbols of home and movement at once.
Look up Mandrile, Cecilia.
Overview
Created in 1998, *Strategies for Departure Project* is a print that visualizes Cecilia Mandrile’s peripatetic existence after leaving Argentina in her twenties. The work examines how migrants rely on photographs of family and friends as portable, emotional possessions while constantly on the move.
Subject & Meaning
The piece foregrounds the experience of itinerancy, portraying the significance of personal images as anchors for displaced individuals. By highlighting photographs as the primary material people carry, Mandrile underscores the tension between mobility and the need for tangible connections to home.
Technique & Style
Mandrile employs a digital workflow: she photographs her own face, manipulates the image on a computer, prints it onto cloth, and then cuts, stitches, and stuffs the fabric to create doll heads. These handcrafted figures are combined with found objects that reference specific stops along her journeys, blurring the line between print and three‑dimensional installation.
History & Provenance
The work originated from Mandrile’s practice of using a laptop and portable printer as a mobile studio, allowing her to produce art in airports, bus stations, and other transient spaces. A series of related “ID” cards—where “ID” stands for “Intensively Displaced”—features the doll head and is catalogued in the museum as items E.215‑218‑2005.
Context
Mandrile’s nomadic lifestyle informs the project’s focus on migration, memory, and the material culture of travel. The dolls function as portable shrines, each embellished with objects that serve as mnemonic markers of the places she has inhabited, reflecting broader discourses on diaspora and the politics of belonging.
Artist & collection
Artist
Cecilia Mandrile’s prints capture everyday places and moods in simple, direct lines.
