GRANDMOTHER
EXERCISE 1
Large-format portrait of the artist’s deceased grandmother, constructed by a simple and disposable material: post-it notes.
This photographic incarnation, because of its materiality, not only exhibits a particular texture but also, from the fragmentation between the image and the wall, generates a conversation between both, including the white empty spaces in its composition.
Through a tension between the image and silences as well as the symbolic connotations of the post-its, the artist reflects on the fragility of memory. The association between old-age and its pathologies, in this case, her grandmother’s Alzheimer`s, intersects with the incomplete memories the artist’s has of her diceased family members. who have died.
The performance behind the construction of this work, its ephemeral essence, alongside the possibility of the audience’s interventions on the work, advances a relation between time and photography. In this work, photography ceases to be a ‘capture’ of a moment; an encapsulated time. Instead, it contains and incorporates time; it is a photographic incarnation unfolding in time. In this sense, “Grandmother” attempts to expand the limits of photography, not only in material terms but also in relation to a conceptual field.
Royal College of Art, 2019.
Saatchi Gallery, 2020.