Utopia
digital C-prints
six images, 39.5 x 29.5 cm
2006
The word Utopia rests in the archives of the humanities as a dream. If we would make the exercise of thinking about it as if it would be a physical place - in the guise of Thomas More’s text - we could think about it as a place where everyone has the same rights, architectonically available to all, no pollution, no traffic jams, perfect communicational devices and sheer political correctness. Those descriptions that time has accumulated in different fields of knowledge appear delusional and even nightmarish to some, given the danger that the combination between the dream of well being on one hand and the psychological conditioning of political power on the other, represents for the human mind and the social fabric.
Utopias appear some times as futures under political arrest.
In that sense, the work presents itself as a counterpoint to the ideal, given by the physical and social realities of the artist’ living environment by the time in which she took the photos. The piece appears then between a delusional idealization of a place, and the cracks that appear in a city like Bogota, whose conversation with its public space is produced by a constant negotiation between chaos, survival and adaptability.
The photographs place themselves as a portrait of silent dysfunctionalities -weeds- that tackle at the same time that encourage daydreaming as a political act. The intention during the making process of the work, was to establish a link between psychological and social circumstances surrounding the everyday life in the city, and the acts of walking and contemplating as active parts of those circumstances.
six images, 39.5 x 29.5 cm
2006
The word Utopia rests in the archives of the humanities as a dream. If we would make the exercise of thinking about it as if it would be a physical place - in the guise of Thomas More’s text - we could think about it as a place where everyone has the same rights, architectonically available to all, no pollution, no traffic jams, perfect communicational devices and sheer political correctness. Those descriptions that time has accumulated in different fields of knowledge appear delusional and even nightmarish to some, given the danger that the combination between the dream of well being on one hand and the psychological conditioning of political power on the other, represents for the human mind and the social fabric.
Utopias appear some times as futures under political arrest.
In that sense, the work presents itself as a counterpoint to the ideal, given by the physical and social realities of the artist’ living environment by the time in which she took the photos. The piece appears then between a delusional idealization of a place, and the cracks that appear in a city like Bogota, whose conversation with its public space is produced by a constant negotiation between chaos, survival and adaptability.
The photographs place themselves as a portrait of silent dysfunctionalities -weeds- that tackle at the same time that encourage daydreaming as a political act. The intention during the making process of the work, was to establish a link between psychological and social circumstances surrounding the everyday life in the city, and the acts of walking and contemplating as active parts of those circumstances.
