In Sicilian, “dagala” refers to islands of vegetation spared by lava flows, scattered across the volcanic landscape of Mount Etna. The vivid colours of these small oases emerge from the black volcanic rock. In Arabic, Dag Allah means “saved by God.”
Drawing on this image, I conceived Dagallà, a collection of three wool rugs for CC-Tapis as an archipelago of surviving lands. In developing their residual forms and fields of colour, I had to reverse my habitual tendency to open up perspectival space, bringing them back to the ground plane. The gaze no longer recedes toward a transcendent vanishing point, but encounters a surface that reflects and offers itself, turned inside out: a void, a hole in the ground opened beneath the feet of those who walk across it.
