Process Room, 04.01.06- 15.01.06
According to Foucault “culture is a map of sense that transforms the world into an intelligible place”, when we cross its borders this map becomes a mistaken map, in so far as ‘there’ becomes ‘here’.
Based in the UK but of Argentinean origin 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. Carbajal often collaborates with artists and non-artists who also live abroad to gather source materials and thoughts for the development of her work.
Broken Landscape interweaves reflections, thoughts and actions, which surround ideas of migration, distance and foreignness.
Postcards are at best somewhat vacuous symbols of places. Once removed from their context they become emptier still; melancholic and, if unwritten, they are left devoid of memories or personal references.
Here, postcards (some from the 1960’s and all from diverse places) have been delicately dissected, further removing their context, and then reprinted so that their aged, worn surfaces and dated colours are distanced from us, trapped as only an image now behind a new glossy sheen.
The video piece is more physical: Its warm, muffled glow and dizzy-making rhythm, pulse and throb the viewer, inducing a kind of static travel sickness. The blurry, perhaps inadequate maps seem to take us on an undetermined journey. Visceral and sensate we are left feeling uneasy, at once sheltered and lost, comforted and awkwardly out of place.
Lorena Carbajals residency was kindly supported by the UNESCO/Aschberg bursaries for artists.