___________________________
ITA - ENG
MARCH 2022
Guadalupe Plaza Petersen, was born in Salta Argentina in 1979. She is a Visual Artist, her artistic mediums are photography, video art and installation. She has exhibited globally in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
She has a Specialty in Visual Arts, scholarship from the Indonesian Embassy, ISI SOLO University Hava Indonesia, 2011-2012.
She lived in Italy where she taught Contemporary Art workshops.
She studied Theater, Social Communications, attended Audiovisual Semiotics Seminars, Photographic Aesthetics Workshops with Guadalupe Miles and Eduardo Gil; Video Art and Electronic Art Clinics with Carlos Trilnick and Jacobo Sucari, at the CCEBA, Photography and Art Seminar, and New Media, with Andrea Elías, Art History Workshops in Italy. Individual clinics with Gabriel Valansi and Fernando Farina. She participated in the Biennial of Documentary Photography in Tucumán.
All images © courtesy of Guadalupe Plaza Petersen
Sito web: www.guadalupeplazapetersen.com
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When did you become interested in photography? What attracted you in the
beginning?
It could be said that after a series of systematic failures that were rooted in the idea of what should be, a slight dive into law, philosophy, and communications, which led me to approach and find my passion in art and photography. .
At home we always talked about art and music, I studied piano and guitar, the intellectuality of my father and the humanity and sensitivity of my mother will surely help us in this process.
And so it was that I immersed myself in that world, and I could never again run away from that place of fullness and absolute enjoyment that implies shooting the camera and surrendering to the daily work of creation, the reflection that awakens that interior and exterior world of beauty and horror, at once.
I was inspired by artists like Marina Abramovic, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Pipilotti Rist among others.
That is how I trained between Argentina and Italy and was awarded a scholarship by the Indonesian Embassy to do a specialty in photography there on the Island of Hava. From the beginning my work has been developed from two axes: the self-referential and the aesthetic. My recurring themes revolve around violence and social criticism that define my search for the aesthetic.
Since my trip through Asia, my idea of photography as art has changed. I felt attracted by situations, cultures, customs and idiosyncrasies, always with a sense of extreme. Boldness is my way of approaching photography.
In the series Registros y De(s)amor I wanted to experience the fact of being photographed, not only being behind the camera and shooting but getting involved as part of the work, using the body, as action and language. De(s)amor was a series of photographs, which lasted 7 years, narrating through
sequences my personal autobiographical and domestic history and the timelessness of individual dynamics, with an imprint that goes beyond the documentary itself. It explores elements of the unreal, dreamy and fantastic, with a strong aesthetic sense.
The image is necessary to think about the real, the habitual and the imaginary that sustain our world, our desire and our pain.
The theme that you face in Return to Paradise is fundamental today among
artists. What prompted you to face it? What do you want to communicate?
In "Return to Paradise", making a small reference to this time of the Anthropocene, is a series that works as a meeting point, to rethink and overcome this separation of humanity from the environment, to make us reflect on the climate urgency, generate environmental awareness and responsibility with the planet that contains us and that we inhabit.
And the question: where do we stand in this symbiotic world, close to this common future? I like to work first based on a concept or idea. In the process of interaction between my epicenter and the peripheral, it is vital for the creation of my art and for its renewal. Reflecting on the connection between certain
milestones such as adulthood, life, death and the way to order them, scrutinize them, generate a change, a mutation, a regeneration, sometimes comes unintentionally.
Quoting Verónica García: In The daily exercise that artists do, of recognizing ourselves in images that arise many times, we don't really know where from, there is always the option of jumping. Surrender to the void. Give everything for something we don't even know exists. I wanted to experience the fact of not being the center like in my other series, losing focus, focusing on something other than myself, and it was a challenge, working with the landscape without falling into the common place, getting
outside of myself, simply being behind the camera and shooting without getting involved as part of the job.
How much does post-production affect your photographs?
Quite a lot, almost completely, they have a lot of post-production work, in the images I never add or take away, if I edit, I think that the intersection between the trades and the arts is already something necessary and daily for Contemporary Art.
How do you choose the places to photograph? How does the creative process work?
Return to Paradise, are images taken between the south and north of Argentina,
Iceland, and Norway, I wanted to recreate the scenarios, the environments, the
virginity of the landscape, the destruction of nature, the threatening demography,
merge between the fantastic or the almost unreal.
My creative process, I think, has more to do with exploration, and also with self-knowledge, fleeing from the place of comfort, to create from a certain abyss and emptiness.
It is a personal exploration with a certain fragility and intentional ambiguity, which speaks of the feeling of abandonment, separation, limits, time and how the state of things is about to explode.
It's not? What is it?. Classical science insisted on balance, order, and stability.
Today we see fluctuations and instability everywhere. We have realized the complexity of the universe.
The more we explore the universe, the more dismayed we are by the narrative element that we find in all its levels. Nature also presents us with narratives embedded one within another; cosmological history, stories on a molecular scale, history of life and of man until we reach our individual history.
Without stopping asking ourselves almost like a mantra, what is it, what is on the other side? the loss, the pain, the chaos and the need to escape, as spectator human beings with an imaginary, reviewing our lives and our states, and trying to connect in parallel with that real world that sustains, invites, enchants, demands, that at the same time is so uncertain, insecure and abstract.
Where do you think your photography will go in the future?
Hopefully far away, the mere fact of being able to show abroad that there is this
interaction with art spaces at an international level is what I aspire to the most, the idea and communication is a hinge in my work, that generates in another some question, some feeling, come somehow.
And without the unconditional support of my family, my two children and Alejandro, my husband, all that would not be possible. And it is on that path and in that bottom or limit where my images aspire and
where the forms begin to dissolve.
ThanksÅ
RETURN TO PARADISE
"Return to Paradise" series, making a little reference to this time of the Anthropocene.
This series works as a meeting point, to rethink and overcome this separation of humanity with the environment, to make us reflect on the climatic urgency, generate environmental awareness and responsibility with the planet that contains us and we inhabit.
And the question: where do we stand in this symbiotic world, close to this common future?
I like to work first based on a concept or idea. In the process of interaction between my epicenter and the peripheral it is vital for the creation of my art and for its renewal. Reflecting on the connection between certain milestones such as adulthood, life, death and the way to order them, scrutinize them, to generate a change, mutation, regeneration, sometimes it comes out unintentionally.
In The daily exercise that artists do, of recognizing ourselves in images that arise many times, we do not really know where from, there is always the option of jumping. To give in to the void. To give everything for something that we don't even know if it exists.
I wanted to experience the fact of ceasing to be the center as in my other series, to get out of focus, to focus, on something other than myself, and it was a challenge, working with the landscape without falling into the commonplace , get out of myself, just be behind the camera and shoot without getting involved as part of the work.
I wanted to experience the fact of ceasing to be the center as in my other series, to get out of focus, to focus, on something other than myself, and it was a challenge, working with the landscape without falling into the commonplace , get out of myself, just be behind the camera and shoot without getting involved as part of the work.
Recreate the settings, the environments, the virginity of the landscape, the destruction of nature, the threatening demographics, merge between the fantastic or the almost unreal.
I think it has more to do with exploration, and also with self-knowledge, running away from the place of comfort, to create from a certain abyss and emptiness.
It is a personal exploration with a certain fragility and intentional ambiguity, which speaks of the feeling of helplessness, separation, limits, edges, time and how the state of things is on the verge of bursting.
It is a personal exploration with a certain fragility and intentional ambiguity, which speaks of the feeling of helplessness, separation, limits, edges, time and how the state of things is on the verge of bursting.
What is it not? What is it?. Classical science insisted on equilibrium, order, and stability. Today we see fluctuations and instability everywhere. We have become aware of the inherent complexity of the universe.
The more we explore the universe, the more dismayed we are by the narrative element that we find in all its levels.
Nature also presents us narratives embedded one within another; cosmological history, histories on a molecular scale, history of life and of man until we reach our individual history.
Nature also presents us narratives embedded one within another; cosmological history, histories on a molecular scale, history of life and of man until we reach our individual history.
Without stopping to ask ourselves almost like a mantra What is it, what is on the other side? loss, pain, chaos and the need to escape, as human beings spectators with an imaginary, reviewing our lives and our states, and trying to connect in parallel with this real world that sustains, that invites, enchants, that demands, that the time is so uncertain, insecure and abstract. Life as a whole as a single cosmic entity.
And it is in that path and in that background or limit where my images aspire and where the forms begin to dissolve.