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Residency Artist

Lorena Carbajal

Country of Birth: Argentina

Overview

Based in the UK Lorena Carbajal is interested in investigating the notion of displacement, to examine the effects of bringing two cultures sometimes uncomfortably close together – where the uncertainty of incompatible codes, both linguistic and cultural emerges. “Lost in translation” is an aspect of her work, how these ideas can be misinterpreted. She often collaborates with artists and non-artists who also live abroad to gather source materials and thoughts for the development of her work. Carbajal believes that her investigations will be enriched dramatically through the sharing of different points of view on the same subject.

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Residency Profile

Studio 3A
10 October 2005 – 31 January 2006
Mix-media/installation/video/ interventions

The Process Room

Lorena Carbajal work can be seen in the Process Room, First Floor Galleries, IMMA, until 15 January 2006.

Studio 14
12 July to 30 August 2009
Mix-media, installation, photography, projections, video, collage

Charles Landry states in the article The dilemma of crossing cultures (page 28), Engage n* 13, Art Magazine, “We live in an age of cultural crossovers, hybrids and fusions, brought about by mass mobility and the process of globalization”. Carbajal’s work is placed on the border of this web of cultural crossovers, where ideas such as migration, place, distance, homeland, memory and foreignness, all meet. Based in the UK but originally from Argentina, she explores the notion of migration, and the feeling of non-belonging or mixed belonging as a result of displacement. Her work often suggests a third identity or hybrid identity which is derived from the translation of one culture’s system of meaning into another’s, where the uncertainty of incompatible codes, both cultural and linguistic emerges. Language and miscommunication are other aspects of her work – using translations, misspellings and mispronounced words she investigates the gap between languages and the phenomenon of misunderstanding.

Dissecting, cutting, removing, taking out of place, exchanging and superimposing, are some of the procedures, ideas and actions involved in her practice. At times she sends the physical items of the work itself on a migratory journey, passing it through the hands, minds and decisions of other cultures and languages: Elements are added or get lost on this journey. Other times work is created simultaneously across borders, only later to be reunited. Carbajal has shown her work in various exhibitions in Argentina, Spain, England and Ireland.