Maria Luisa Sanin Pena

Bogota, Colombia

September 1 - 30, 2018

Hosted in partnership with Ministry of Culture Colombia

Artist Statement

Immersive installation is the main axis of my artistic practice. I work through the digital distortion and editing of appropriated material from pop culture, as well as the collection and intervention of discarded technological artifacts. These acts, coupled with the construction of installation-based environments, seek to create self-contained worlds with elements of our media landscape: referential, but strange. The work explores the concept of obsolescence: the planned obsolescence of technology, as well as the quick circulation of imagery in popular consciousness. Globalization is a force of homogeneity, an assumption of a shared international experience where the faces of certain celebrities, the shapes of certain logos, become signs that transcend geography and language, and gain near-universal recognition. The work is proudly humorous and kitsch. It borrows from dated sci-fi aesthetics coupled with post-internet imagery, and is preoccupied with the post-apocalyptic. It is an experiment in the flexibility of signs. It asks: Can we believe a jellyfish is a spaceship? Can we believe the Kardashians drive submarines?

Artist Links

Instagram: @saninpena