On October 16, the International Self-Portraits Project was inaugurated at Proyecto´ace’s Políglota Room, with the presence of Joseph Scheer, professor and co-director of the Institute of Electronic Arts (IEA) at Alfred University and Aodi Liang, Associate Researcher at the same university. Both of them traveled to Buenos Aires to carry out different activities, which included giving a lecture within the framework of the MFA- Master of Electronic Arts at UNTREF/University of Tres de Febrero (Scheer) and an production residence at Proyecto´ace (Liang).

The Self-Portraits Project is a collection of international artworks developed under the direction of Argentinean artist Alicia Candiani, whose original idea was to bring together artists from diverse cultures to visually explore the theoretically complex issues of self-representation as a means of identity. After its launch date in 2006, Alicia has been invited by nine art institutions from Argentina,  Mallorca and Cuenca in Spain, Brazil, Canada, Sweden as well as Kansas City, Montclair and Anchorage, Alaska in the United States to execute the project.

In 2018, during her stay in the Expanded Media Division of Alfred University in New York, USA, Alicia developed the topic of self-representation during a semester with her students among the Artists’ Multiples course. Joseph Scheer and Andrew Deutsch, a sound artist and Director of the Expanded Media Division, participated as guest artists. Along with them, other teachers from the division such as Judy Livingston (Associate Professor Graphic Design), William Contino (Associate Professor Expanded Media) and Myles Calvert (Visiting Faculty Art & Design) joined the project with their self-representations.

The World IS a Handkerchief : El mundo es un pañuelo
A Wandering Genealogy curated by Claudia DeMonte & Cecilia Mandrile
The World IN a Handkerchief : El mundo en un pañuelo
Guest Curator, genealogy Proyecto’ace: Alicia Candiani
Exhibition of pieces
selected from the Fundación´ace´s collection and Alicia Candiani’s personal collection of the participating artists in “The world IN a handkerchief”

For a month and a half, the Políglota Room is hosting three exhibitions on a rotating basis. From March 23 to April 1, “The world IS a handkerchief” and “The world IN a handkerchief: the genealogy of ´ace” were exhibited simultaneously, paying special tribute to the Argentine artist Graciela Sacco. While the original  series returned to New York from where it will soon travel to England, the ‘ace genealogy collection was joined by a new exhibition of  large format pieces of the participating artists, some belonging to the Fundación’ace collection and others to the private collection of Alicia Candiani.

The World IS a Handkerchief is a travelling exhibition rooted in the Spanish saying ‘el mundo es un pañuelo,’ which translates into English as ‘this is such a small world’. The project traces serendipitous encounters, moments of discovering personal connections in distant places or unexpected contexts. The project began with the meeting of Claudia DeMonte and Cecilia Mandrile as a mentor and student respectively at the University of Maryland, United States in 1995 and has expanded through an international collaborative network between mentors, students and
peers.

The World IN a Handkerchief is a new chapter of the project, a graphic, soft and traveling portfolio curated by guests artists from the core genealogy. Artist and curator Alicia Candiani, essential mentor of this genealogy, Founder and Director of Proyecto´ace, has been invited to curate this new collection that reflects her close creative family.

ABOUT THE WORLD IN A HANDKERCHIEF  by  Cecilia Mandrile

Handkerchiefs have accompanied people in celebrations and farewells in many cultures for centuries, offered bodily protection and coverage, and sustained expressions of political tenets and spiritual beliefs. In this project, handkerchiefs become vessels of memories and itinerant narratives; containers of emotions; translators of wounds, signals of ideological resistance. Each piece epitomizes a soft space that holds disappearing recollections of homeland as well as reflections on displacement and identity that can be carried as a tangible memento. In times when touch appears as a dangerous sense, every single printed handkerchief means a meaningful testament of the continuous nurturing mentorship among artists and educators, reminding us that the soft touch remains both an intimate and universal need of communication.

To celebrate this constant and sustained creative dialogue, in 2019 the curators developed a portable exhibition of 50 handkerchiefs that explored the meaning of belonging and interconnectedness that this Spanish saying so tangibly evokes. In the reconstruction of this alternative family made up of artists and collectives from different latitudes and generations during the last two decades, both printed an edition of 25 handkerchiefs, and sent a printed handkerchief along with a blank handkerchief to 50 invited artists to intervene with their own reflections
on home, identity and belonging. From this exchange a “wandering genealogy” was born, a tribute to the strong threads that have woven this shared territory as itinerant artists and educators.

A limited edition catalogue including the work of 50 invited artists was published by Impact Press, Bristol, UK and includes an essay by Gill Saunders, Senior Curator of Prints, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Currently, the catalogs of workshops and portfolios remain as digital publications, thus allowing to document the constant growth of this genealogy. Chris Knollmeyer, a sound artist in residence at ´ace at the same time, composed for this exhibition a special piece: “Sound of the Handkerchiefs”. The piece is a piano study made up of 25 melodies. Just as the handkerchiefs are tied to each artist’s history and sense of home, Chris feels a connection to the piano.