Deborah Aschheim

Elena Bajo

David Bowie

Monika Goetz

Elin Hansdottir

Marla Hlady

Emily Jacir

John Noestheden

Fahamu Pecou

Tomo Savic-Gecan

Katerina Seda

Emna Zghal

INSTALLATION

Elena Bajo (selected by Praxis), “ALTER-ED” Funes and Mersault: New York Series
2005, Plant, soil, mirrors, wood frames, umbrellas, photograph
Dimensions variable

ABOUT THE WORK
Funes and Mersault, New York Series, is a continuation of a body of work where I explore how spatial arrangements reflect on human conditions on a social, economical, and psychological level, based on the books by J.L. Borges “Funes the Memorious” and Albert Camus “The Stranger”. It is a piece that study processes of consciousness, the differences between our perceptions, internal reality with the external reality: “the very act of perceiving, of heeding, is of a selective order, every attention, every fixation of our conscience, implies a deliberate omission of that which is uninteresting”. The resulting piece creates a space gone awry, reflecting on a certain anxiety, generated by the objects themselves or their specific arrangement

STATEMENT
I am interested in situations where spaces of exchange are being produced. My work explores the inter-relationships between population, spatial environment and social organization in these kinds of spaces. I am interested not in the situation itself but in the flow ofcommunication, I am interested not in the message
but in the space between sender and receptor, in the circulation of messages, in the space of information de-coding, in the space between words.

I use natural materials or nature references, which I place together with artificial materials to create a paradoxical environment in which perception is both direct and mediated and meaning is confronted with anti-meaning.

My interventions are site-specific, requiring a spatial engagement with the city and/or the habitat living organisms are immersed in, exploring relationships, building bridges, exposing gaps between the different kind of spaces, ecological, social , economical, political and historical that contribute to cultural production.

My approach usually implies a direct action which requires a response from the viewer/participant and act as generator of material and knowledge relevant to the work, which can be the production of an action/intervention in real life, a performance, an architectural piece, the recreation or appropriation of a historical event, or the framing of an actual circumstance. Also one of the aims on using this “non mediated”
approach is to question the “art making” activity by itself.

I consider the role of the artist as producer of reality as opposed to artist representing reality. I contemplate society as a body, the world as an integrated system. My art practice functions as a telecommunication link, which bridges ideas of perception, space and time, communication, global flows, participation and the generation of a new paradigm, a new shift in values, based in the butterfly effect: very small and simple systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events, from Edward Lorenz “Chaos Theory”: ‘ the sensitive dependence of a system on initial conditions…’

My work together with other artists’ work and activities will expose these gaps and discontinuities and will create an alternative system of relations that can be viewed against the backdrop of the model of the city as it already exists. And as Gordon Matta-Clark would say ‘how one maneuvers in the systems, determines what size and kind of space we work and live in”.

BIO
Elena Bajo is an artist from Madrid, Spain, living and working in New York and London. She has received an MA Fine Arts from Saint Martins School of Arts, London and an MA in Architecture from ESARQ, Barcelona. Recent exhibitions include Funes and Mersault: London Series at Central Saint Martins Gallery, London and The Waterways Project , Venice Biennial. She has been recipient of the 2004 Arco-Madrid Abierto Public Art
Award. She is a contributor to the book Looking, Encountering, Staging” recently published by Revolver Books. Future exhibits include the Waterways Project, Istanbul Biennial.