Sofía Ognjenovich Vaz

Artist, author and designer born in 1988.
Master of Arts in Fashion, Royal College of Art, UK.
Founder and designer at Autora Vaz.
Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay.

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AUTORA VAZ

Textile laboratory label
Montevideo, Uruguay
2026 Collection 27

Hemp, Ecovero™, Cotton gauze deadstock, Natural indigo, Madder, Logwood, Pomegranate, Cutch, Corozo, Wood, Organic cotton thread. 
Variable Measurements. The first collection of this textile research project based in Uruguay explores clothing making as a visible and adaptable system. Seams, pockets and construction elements are brought to the outside, exposing the structure of each garment. Drawstrings, elastics, buttons and ties allow the wearer to adjust and transform each piece. The body has the final say in its shape and participates in the creation. Natural dyes and textile manipulations used will evolve over time, allowing each garment to retain traces of the wearer.

autoravaz.com
@autoravaz


AUTORA VAZ

Textile laboratory label
Montevideo, Uruguay
2026 Research and Development

Canvas, other toiling materials, Natural indigo, Madder, Logwood, Pomegranate, Cutch, Uruguayan National Museum of Visual Arts archive. 
Variable Measurements Colección 27 as developed through research into the work of Petrona Viera (1895–1960), archived at the National Museum of Visual Arts in Uruguay. Viera was one of the first women artists to gain recognition and have her work preserved in the country. She developed a distinctive and deeply personal interpretation of European Planism, portraying scenes of everyday life, domestic environments, and children playing and studying, while producing an extensive visual record of the Uruguayan landscape.


AUTORA VAZ

Textile laboratory label
Montevideo, Uruguay
2025 Pilot Collection

Hemp, Ecovero™, Natural indigo, Madder, Black Tea, Corozo, Wood, Cotton thread. 
Variable Measurements.
Autora Vaz, with autora meaning ‘female author’ in Spanish, is a research project exploring modes of production and visual languages for the female body rooted in Uruguayan territory. The pilot collection experiments with a material and constructional language through the use of archetypal shapes, adaptable constructive resources, biodegradable plant-based materials and natural dyes. Created in collaboration with women’s cooperatives and independent makers in Montevideo, it examines how clothing can reflect the conditions, resources and people involved in its production.

autoravaz.com
@autoravaz

BECOMING AN ORPHAN

Editorial Encuentros
Montevideo, Uruguay
2024Book

Photography, black-and-white printing, cardboard, dyed canvas, screen printing, ink, used shopping bags, glue and inkjet printing.
Book: Hardcover, 128 pages, 120 x 200 mm
Publication as a novel of the texts originally intended for a performance. The design preserves the original visual language and the spirit of a textile archive-catalogue. All 80 garments used in the performance were photographed and placed alongside their corresponding narratives.The shopping bags from the purchase of those garments were recycled into new paper, handwritten with fragments from the book, and turned into 80 bookmarks.


Book text in English

NOT EVEN THE RAIN

Work in progress
London, UK
2022-presentVideoperformance / Installation

Pencil on paper, canvas, thread, polylactic acid, digital media.
Casting made using Tinder app.
Variable measurements.
This piece explores events anchored in the body’s physical memory. It proposes narration as a way of reconstructing, dramatizing, sharing and reclaiming events. The central work is a video performance built around a minimal gesture that is later dissected and repeated with different people. In the final part, everyone involved in the film offers feedback on what they think happened. The accompanying pieces echo the narrative as it is presented: fragmented, fragile, emotionally intense and open to multiple readings.

TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS

After Lygia Clark
Montevideo, Uruguay
2021Wearable sculptures

Paper, pencil, canvas, thread, ceiling painting.
Variable measurements
This studio-based investigation into drawing and sculpting with fabric draws on the work of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, especially her relational objects and pieces. Through a strategy of externalizing dreams, fears and other monsters, the work seeks to restore control over these experiences by transforming them into tangible, passive, soft objects external to the body and susceptible to any imposed transformation. It also draws on the notion of transitional objects as developed by Donald Winnicott.

BECOMING AN ORPHAN

Pensión Milán
Montevideo, Uruguay
2021Performance

Garments, hangers, suitcase, paper, chair. 
Audio narrations uploaded to SoundCloud.
Variable duration.
In 2020, as my mother's illness progressed I compulsively bought a lot of clothes, as if trying to wrap myself while the loss was becoming imminent. Some months later I wrote down the story of each piece, the expectations and fantasies I remembered projecting onto it at the moment of purchase, as well as the relationship that ultimately happened. The presentation of the work took the form of a performance in which I interacted with the audience, sharing some of these stories while the garments hung on a rack. The original labels were ripped off, and each garment was instead given a tag with a QR code that, when scanned, played an audio version of the corresponding text.
Video documentation

HIPEROBJECT

Research tutor: Susane Irving
London, UK
2022-2023Concept, experience and fragrance design

Glass, copper, IFF portfolio molecules.
Variable measurements.
Research supported by International Fragrances and Flavors.
Inspired by Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, I developed a project that considers fragrance as the shadow of a hyperobject. Focusing on the Anthropocene as such, I designed a line of scents and a concept for an immersive environment that would envelop the audience, using smell as a way to evoke the scale and ubiquity of several problems of this era.
PAINTINGS

Montevideo, Uruguay
2021-2022Large-format paintings

Acrylic on canvas
180 x 180 cm

This series of paintings was made in a 180 × 180 cm format, large enough to inscribe my 170 cm tall body. Rather than representing something, I tried to explore the possibility of recording my gestures and movements, and actually feeling the joy of the physical effort involved in making them.
AFTER YVES KLEIN

Textile experiment
London, UK
2023Experimental print

Body paint, paper, scanner, digital print on cotton.
200 × 70 cm per panel.


In this experiment, I used my own overweight body as a printing tool, ironically reinterpreting Yves Klein’s use of ballet dancers’ bodies to produce his paintings.
OUTWEAR HEMP PYJAMAS

Textile experimentMontevideo, Uruguay
2020-2021Painting, printing, garment prototype

Acrylic painting, kraft paper, transfer impresion, heat transfering, hemp, organic cotton thread
Variable measurements.

Street sleepwear project made from fabric woven in Uruguay from recycled hemp. The prints are created through heat transfer of paintings on kraft wrapping paper that try to register my own movements. The series also includes an unprinted design, representing the importance of empty space for creativity to happen.

Now we work from home.
Is there a chance for the inside to go outside?
Can we dream in the streets?

©Sofía Ognjenovich, 2026. All rights reserved.