Alejandra Arévalo, Blood under the Sundown Light # 1, 2023-2024
Phuong Hoang, Polyptych of Memory #2, 2022
Verónica Losantos, "Shimmer", from the series "Archaia", 2020
Unbinding Histories
Artists: Alejandra Arévalo, Cagla Demirbas, Francesca Hummler, Maike Bergold, Phuong Hoang, Ronja Falkenbach, Verónica Losantos
Curated by Cagla Demirbas
Mezzanine Gallery - 22.08.2024 - 03.10.2024
“Do not be defeated by the Feeling
that there is too much for you to know. That
is a myth of the oppressor. You are
Capable of understanding life. And it is yours alone.
And only this time.”
Kenneth Koch, The Art of Love: Poems
Unbinding Histories is a group exhibition featuring the works of seven international women photographers. Coinciding with Woman’s Month in South Africa, their works speak of nebulous territories that make up the human experience from a female lens. The mezzanine floor fundamentally presents the perfect analogy for the nuances inherently rooted in the narratives of this new generation of female photographers.
The seven artists met in July 2022 when they attended the Studio Vortex residency in Arles, France led by Antoine d’Agata of Magnum Photos. The exhibition chronicles the transformative journey their work has gone through in the following two years, exploring stories that exist between the boundaries of continents, countries, cultures, and even timelines. These stories, clustering around gender, identity, heritage, history, and their intersection, ultimately point out a very human desire for fiction, even if the said fiction is found within us.
Alejandra Arévalo’s Blood under the Sundown Light addresses a Black counter history outside the colonial context by researching the Siddi community in India while navigating how one cultivates a sense of belonging while honoring their origins, Arévalo’s documentary aesthetic is interwoven to her visual language, just as intersectionality is an essential keyword to understand her approach.
Francesca Hummler’s Looking for Guerrero navigates a similar path of national identity and a sense of belonging through her former partner’s contemplation of leaving the U.S. and joining the Mexican army. Hummler’s images, with their haunting quality and witty undertones, can be read as a visual autopsy of not only an expired dream but also generational aspirations of a better life.
Verónica Losantos is another artist who works on collective memory with her Archaia, where she recounts the visual reminders of intergenerational trauma and the phenomena of disappearing. Her photographs act as an imaginative inversion of the flooding of Mansilla de la Sierra, Spain, where her grandparents lived. In an engagement with the concept of post-memory, Losantos constitutes her own archeological record of the submerged village.
Building upon the exploration of personal histories within the social milieu, the artists at the other end of the exhibition delve into more private narratives.
Ronja Falkenbach’s Raver is an intimate series of portraits following a decision of sobriety where she eagerly and patiently explores the subculture through her subjects. Raver takes place in a moment of transition, not only from night to day, but also when a nonchalant façade reveals fragility underneath.
A similar liminality is felt across Maike Bergold’s High Hopes, a bold statement about not being afraid to take space between impulse and reaction. The poetic sensibility in the series subtly suggests that Bergold’s self-portraits take the form of her surroundings as she confronts the fear of uncertainty.
In tandem, I Know You’re Capable of Beautiful Intimacies by Cagla Demirbas is a poignant examination of closeness and distance found in human relationships. The work attributes a sense of elusiveness to the tension that manifests, ultimately conceptualizing intimacy through non-human elements.
Last but not least, Phuong Hoang’s enigmatic Polyptych of Memory is a journey on the terrain of dissected memories. Hoang’s eye is experimental yet tender, revealing that the human experience is shaped by the act of remembering as well as the recollection itself.
Curatorial statement by Cagla Demirbas
Generously supported by:
Acción Cultural Española
Erkin Tekel
Imran Garda
Illustrations: Miguel Luna