Artists
Mexico
Laura Barrón
Absentia
10.11.13 01.12.13
The proposal that Laura Barron will develop at her residence in ‘ace consists in producing a photographic archive focused on documenting empty, abandoned or in transition urban spaces.
With the resulting imagery Laura will build sculpture-like books with formats yet to be explored. Laura’s intention is to be able to rethink the landscape perspective and placed herself in an unfamiliar context in order to generate creative stimuli.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work uses an array of landscape forms—cities, seas, forests, deserts and other spaces—as a platform for transformation, altering the appearance of these places with the intention of exploring the different ways in which they shape our lives and memories and, conversely, the ways in which our actions, our memories and our gaze transform the landscape.
All my landscape work relates to the experience of displacement, what it is that we constantly leave behind, and what we keep.
BIO
Laura Barrón
1966 | Born in Mexico City, Mexico.
Since 2003, lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
She teaches Photography at the OCAD University, Canada.
STUDIES
2007 | MA in Visual Arts, York University. Toronto, Canada.
1991 | BA in Visual Arts, ENAP-UNAM. Mexico City, Mexico.
RESIDENCIES
Banff Center. Alberta, Canada.
La chambre Blanche. Quebec, Canada.
Lugar a dudas. Cali, Colombia.
AWARDS
She has been the recipient of several awards and production fellowships as FONCA-CONACULTA in Mexico and Ontario Ars Council in Canada.
Related Activities
Exhibitions
Absentia
Laura Barrón
27.11.13
“With this work (Absentia) I explore issues of cultural identity. By connecting memory and territory and presence Absentia also talks about nostalgia, longing and loss.”
ARTIST STATEMENT ABOUT ABSENTIA
Absentia is a project that narrates a returning journey to my home country after being an immigrant in Canada for more than a decade. In 2003 I moved from Mexico. After many years of my relocation I came to the realization that I was learning about Latin America in a way I never did while living in Mexico.
Most of my friends are from Latin American descent. The connection with this group of people planted in me the idea of a return trip that would require a long detour throughout South America and the Caribean. I wanted to visit my friend´s home countries as a way to understanding them better but also to reconnect with my roots. In 2013 I started traveling, the first place I visited was Colombia, then Ecuador, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, and so on.
The project became a reconstruction of my history in Canada, but also a reconstruction of my own territory and a return to myself.
Related artists
Absentia@Argentina consisted, first of all, in the elaboration of a photographic archive of vacant, abandoned or transitional urban spaces of the city of Buenos Aires. After the registration, the artist built books-sculptures that were installed in the Transversal Space of the Fundación ’ace.
Interested in finding in the urban landscape elements that work as footprints, as evidence of what was, the artist questioned and reconsidered the perspective of the landscape through photography, a tool that suggests, questions, evokes, stimulates, builds, invents and modifies.
