[Reportaje] Latin Canadian artists propose a sensitive mapping

Having studied Visual Arts at the Javeriana University of Bogotá and Arts, Creativity and Technology at the University of Montreal, Laura Criollo-Carrillo proposes her work in this exhibition Superposed cities (Villes superposées).

It is a process in which magnetic waves, infrared rays and other elements converge that, had it not been for the devices that built themselves, would have been imperceptible to the senses.

Electromagnetic interference and infrared radiation are phenomena beyond our senses and capabilities. This is why they are difficult to catch. So, I modified some devices to transform those phenomena to make them audible and visible. For me, it’s a meditative way to explore space.

The artist says that her intention in creating this work was for those who visit it to feel the journey and experience it directly, so that they can remember it.

Memory and migration

While studying at Colombia, Laura Criollo Carrillo became very interested in memory, especially in the duality that exists between personal Fleeting and eternal from the memory.

There are things we can remember throughout our lives and others that we forget in an instant.He says.

However, when she came to Canada, the idea of ​​memory changed for the artist after experiencing how memory and identity were affected by immigration.

Leave behind everything you are, your possessions, your whole life! To start over. Thus I began to be interested in imperceptible phenomena. I wanted to take the idea of ​​the transience of our reality to the extreme. Memory has become an existence and observation of how everything changes so quickly and at the same time can go on forever.

The fragility and strength of life

Pilar Macías has a different way of understanding the region and nature. The Mexican artist collects leaves, seeds and branches and creates mixed-media art pieces with them. He finds his inspiration in his walks through the forests of Camourasca, his Quebec region located about 400 kilometers northeast of Montreal.

Whether frames of cartoons or a massive trunk made of tree leaves stitched together, for Pilar Macias her works are a metaphor for human existence.

I traveled places looking for flowers, plants and seeds, then tried to collect them and create something that spoke of the fragility of life, but at the same time its beauty and strength. They are a bit paradoxical because they are very delicate items, but at the same time they have a lot of power, both symbolic and real, because they remain strong when they are sewn.

This artist arrived in Canada from Mexico in 1995 and quickly settled in the Basse-Saint-Laurent area, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River. He holds two master’s degrees in visual arts, one from Laval University and the other from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Pilar Macías explained to RCI that in the work selected for the exhibition Sensitive mapping She wanted to present a majestic element, the torso, as a representation of the power of nature in relation to other smaller elements It forms on its own.

Pinwheel-shaped grains and seeds, and rhubarb leaves that I wanted to be turtles turned into hearts without me wanting to be. When stitched, some of the leaves and seeds broke and others did not. I realized it was a metaphor for life and our relationships. We identify with people who are different or similar to us and then separation occurs. Some are fixed and some are not. In the end, everything is fleeting

Mapping sensitivities

Pablo Almario is the third artist to be exhibited at Sensitive mapping From the LatinArte Festival. For him, the title of the exhibition defines well what unites the works on display. Almario says the proposal is to make maps, not paper, as a form of artistic language.

For example, my work attempts to capture the urban light of the city through tours taken by workers from the House of Culture. They’re out capturing the city light with some backpacks I designed that contain a computer, GPS, and light sensor. Their tracks were recorded in a database that I used to create the light artworks we see in the exhibition.

For this artist, his work allows us to see the diversity of what digital allows us to do. Today, he explains, we can 3D print a house, but for that to happen, the house must exist in the form of digital data.

In my case, I took the light that comes from the city, and turned it into data that I later used to produce a sound and light installation or as a 3D system with oscillating cubes or with a machine that makes certain strokes with ink on paper. .

Quinceañera by LatinArte

Exhibition Sensitive mapping It is presented until November 5 at the Maison de la Culture Claude Léville in Montreal and is part of the programming of the annual LatinArte Festival, which this year celebrates its 15th anniversary.

LatinArte, created in 2009 and renamed the LatinArte Foundation in 2012, is a non-profit multidisciplinary cultural organization that presents, generally during the month of October, a series of activities and events that invite the public to learn about the artistic diversity of creators. Montreal is of Latin American origin.

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