In Cadarço (Shoe Lace), Brazilian artist Marcius Galan transforms an ordinary thread into a device that measures time, space, and bodily movement. Presented during the exhibition Marrom (brown) at Galeria Vermelho in São Paulo, the work centered on a braiding machine installed inside the gallery. The machine continuously produced a shoelace—an uninterrupted line of woven thread that became both material and constraint.

Galan tied the freshly produced lace to his sneaker and began to walk. His movement, however, was strictly conditioned by the machine’s rhythm: he could only advance as far as the lace allowed. Each step depended on the slow, mechanical production of more meters of thread. To move forward meant waiting, calculating, and negotiating duration. The artist’s trajectory unfolded gradually, step by step, governed by an external apparatus that determined the limits of his freedom.

Leaving the gallery and walking through the streets, Galan improvised his route in real time. The action exposed him to practical and symbolic risks – navigating urban space with a thread attached to his foot, vulnerable to entanglement, interruption, or breakage. The shoelace became a physical tether linking body and machine, interior and exterior, production and displacement.

Through this simple yet precise gesture, Cadarço examines systems of control, dependency, and temporality. The thread operates as a line of connection and restriction, transforming walking—an emblem of autonomy—into an act shaped by waiting and mechanical cadence. In doing so, Galan reveals how subtle structures regulate movement and how even the most everyday materials can articulate complex negotiations between freedom and constraint.

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Source:
Ferreira, Cammila Rego. Deslocamentos como poética: O Caminha através das
Narrativas. São Paulo, 2021.