Esquivias presents a video in which she unravels the hypotheses followed in her research about an enigma: how an embroidery typical of Fez, identical on both sides and therefore of great technical complexity, came to take root in the early 20th century in Caleruela, Toledo.

And she does so, as is usual in the artist’s work, in a manner more elliptical than direct, more personal and intuitive than academic and scholarly. With the hands of a magician and the voice of a storyteller, she lays out on her worktable the fabrics, books, documents, and images she has gathered while traveling—like the Moorish embroidery itself—from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other.

Through them, she traces fragments of history: the War of Morocco and colonial policy, the pedagogical and aesthetic renewal of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, Francoist nationalism. But also lesser-known sub-histories: the collecting and cataloguing of textile holdings in national museums and artists’ collections, the decorative taste of the first half of the 20th century, and the dissemination of embroidery through manuals and exhibitions. And private life as well: the coincidences by which Zenobia Camprubí, Ezequiela Mesa and other embroiderers from Toledo, an anonymous soldier, or an American painter become part of the narrative.