Join us for a talk with artists Tania Candiani and the collective Calderón & Piñeros as they reflect on their filmic explorations of rivers, infrastructures and thwarted dreams of progress.
Narrated through a DC-3 plane, Calderón & Piñeros’ film Volando bajo (Flying Low) reminds us how territories resist processes of modernisation. Despite their obsolescence and constant threat of crashing, these World War II airplanes still connect Colombian communities living in remote areas and have become metaphors of frustrated promises of progress.
Tania Candiani’s video takes us on a journey down the Magdalena River, to the city of Honda in Colombia. Her film reflects on the role of modernisation and technological advancements, mediated through the artist’s personal experience in a narrative reminiscent of a diary or passage through the river.
This event is moderated by co-curator and artist Emilio Chapela.
Join us on Zoom here.
Biographies
Tania Candiani’s (Mexico, 1974) practice spans various media and practices, exploring the complex intersections of phonetic, graphic, linguistic and technological languages. She develops site-specific projects due to her particular interest in researching historical and social links that are triggered by place. Candiani has been a fellow of the National System of Art Creators of Mexico since 2012, she received the Guggenheim Grant for the Arts in 2011, and the Research Grant for Artists awarded by the Smithsonian Institution in 2018. Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally, including representing Mexico at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Key publications on her work include Cinco variaciones de circunstancias fónicas y una pausa (2014); Habita Intervenido (2015); Possessing Nature. Pavilion of Mexico: Venice Biennale (2015) and Cromática (2019).
Visit Tania’s website: taniacandiani.com/
Elkin Calderón Guevara (Colombia, 1975) and Diego Piñeros García (Colombia, 1981) are a Colombian collective that have worked together since 2013. Their research-based artistic projects question hegemonic forms of knowledge and power materialised in technologies, infrastructures and landscapes. They are interested in displacement as a metaphor of encountering other realities, and creating connections between memory and ruins of the past. In 2020, they were nominated for Colombia’s X Premio Luis Caballero, and were awarded a scholarship by the Ministerio de Cultura and Escuela Taller Cartagena de Indias (Etcar) to produce the film and installation EKOBIO (2021). Among their other prizes, in 2018 they won the V Bienal de Artes Plásticas y Visuales FUGA and the Premio Residencia Villa Ruffieux / Pro-helvetia. Their film works have been shown in major international festivals and they have had solo shows in Latin America and Europe.
To see more of their work: vimeo.com/calderonypineros
Emilio Chapela (Mexico, 1978) is a visual artist, researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Plymouth. His art practice explores connections between science, technology and ecology, examining notions of time and space as manifested through matter and forces such as rivers, astronomical phenomena, light, gravity, rocks, plants and volcanoes. His work has been exhibited widely in museum and gallery exhibitions in Mexico and abroad. His most recent museum solo show, En el tiempo de la rosa no envejece el jardinero, for which he collaborated with architects, astronomers and other scientists, was held at Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City in 2019. His work is represented in private and public collections. Chapela is a guest curator and artist with entre—ríos.
To find out more about Emilio, visit: emiliochapela.com
Image credit: Calderón & Piñeros, still from Volando bajo, 2020.