e_fagia  
  we_are history disfagia_zine digital_evet curatorial artists contact_us  
  sub_version displacement in_dependence video_line workshops e_doc news  
   
    workshops    
 

photo project

project title: sui generis

artists: Traffick-art

technique: B&W Photographs and Performance
dimensions: photos 3 x 4 meters

traffick-art members: Sergio Ordoñez, Irene Ordoñez, Sarah Girón, and Carlos Arellano

coordinator: Arlan Londoño

We propose to present a photographic project called Sui Generis. It will consist of a series of photographs reflecting on the contradictory topics of migration and homeland. The stereotype is that homeland for immigrants is a site of nostalgia, and -especially for western culture- it is something like the lost paradise.

We are immigrants who want to participate in our surroundings and create an exchange with the others. We come from peoples whose countries were intervened, and as artists, we want to create public art interventions. We want to intervene in the lives of others, as well as in their social and cultural spheres. We want to treat interventions as a political manifestation.

Today, major fights in our countries are for the possession of land. The project will reflect on these problems as well as the idea of immigrants as trans-cultural and transnational subjects.  The problems addressed, which are drawn from our cultural backgrounds or homelands, will translate into three images, which are: First, the Latin American indigenous or first nations’s march with their request for land. Second, the trip by train made by poor people from the south in their way to the rich north. Third, the trip made by many emigrants when they need to travel with all their stuff or utensils. These issues are shown in our photos and commented and criticized in our workshops.

These three images are from people that march on, walking on their path from one place to the other, from one identity to another. To be on a march is the trans-national proposal and trans-cultural idea behind the project. For our young artists, art can emerge from the challenge of uprooting and relocating in a new country. Our project provides an opportunity for these young artists to respond artistically to this time in history in which immigrants are facing many challenges globally and locally.

project description:

Sui Generis is composed of three mural size photographs and a performance. The photographs will be black and white and of high contrast, to form an ephemeral graffiti. Each photomural will be approximately 3 x 4 meters and will be composed of smaller pieces that will be pasted on the external walls of the exhibition place.

Each photomural will be composed of 100 letter size pieces. Each of the pieces will have on one side a fragment of the mural, and on the other side there will be information about the project and the topic of the image.

The topics of the three images are:

- Image one is a reflection on Latin American indigenous long walks when they are requesting the rights to their land.

- Image two is a reflection on the trip by train that has been taken by migrants from southern countries when they are trying to reach the promissory land of the north.

- Image three is a reflection on a trip by land when people from different countries are forced to abandon their homeland.

The performance will be carried out by the teenager’s members of Traffick-art project. The performance will consist on a display of the photomural during the opening exhibition and the dismantling of it on the same day. Each letter size photo will be offered to the public that attends the exhibition opening.