archaia
“Archaia” (from the Greek “Ta Archaia”, meaning “the ancient/old; the archives”) is
photographic essay where I deal with the phenomenon of "disappearing", using aspects such as collective memory, the role of photography as evidence in archeology and its power to make things remain, even if only in a visual way.
During the 1960s, under Franco's dictatorship, numerous water reservoirs were created in Spain to store water, combat drought, and generate electricity. One of these reservoirs was constructed over Mansilla de la Sierra, the village where my grandparents lived, resulting in its complete flooding.
In the case of Mansilla, residents were forced to relocate to a new village adjacent to the water reservoir, leaving behind their houses, and in some instances, without compensation. From the new settlement, the water of the reservoir is always visible, and during autumn, the receding water levels reveal the ruins of the old village, reminiscent of ghosts.
The inception of my project stemmed from reflecting on how this traumatic intergenerational event affected my grandparents and their contemporaries, while grappling with the persistent visual reminder that these ruins and the water hold.
Through my exploration of how other similar traumatic events have been explored in art, particularly in photography, I came across the concept of 'Post-Memory' coined by Marianne Hirsch. Hirsch makes a distinction between people who have suffered traumatic events (first generation) and are directly related to the people (or things) represented; and those that have no direct relationship with the facts (third generation), but who have knowledge of it only through narratives. Thus, according to Hirsch, a falsification of the narrative arises because the connection with an object or a source is not mediated by memory, but by an imaginative inversion and creation.
Therefore, I decided, instead of working as a photographer, to work as an archaeologist. I went there several times over the course of 4 years and assembled everything I could from the different stages of the reservoir (full or empty), also making comparisons of them in different seasons.
The result is a fictitious archaeological archive in which I compile photographs, documents, negatives, and objects in an attempt to preserve the existence of this place and what is still left, as it will all disappear at some point, its disappearance being accelerated through climate change.
photographic essay where I deal with the phenomenon of "disappearing", using aspects such as collective memory, the role of photography as evidence in archeology and its power to make things remain, even if only in a visual way.
During the 1960s, under Franco's dictatorship, numerous water reservoirs were created in Spain to store water, combat drought, and generate electricity. One of these reservoirs was constructed over Mansilla de la Sierra, the village where my grandparents lived, resulting in its complete flooding.
In the case of Mansilla, residents were forced to relocate to a new village adjacent to the water reservoir, leaving behind their houses, and in some instances, without compensation. From the new settlement, the water of the reservoir is always visible, and during autumn, the receding water levels reveal the ruins of the old village, reminiscent of ghosts.
The inception of my project stemmed from reflecting on how this traumatic intergenerational event affected my grandparents and their contemporaries, while grappling with the persistent visual reminder that these ruins and the water hold.
Through my exploration of how other similar traumatic events have been explored in art, particularly in photography, I came across the concept of 'Post-Memory' coined by Marianne Hirsch. Hirsch makes a distinction between people who have suffered traumatic events (first generation) and are directly related to the people (or things) represented; and those that have no direct relationship with the facts (third generation), but who have knowledge of it only through narratives. Thus, according to Hirsch, a falsification of the narrative arises because the connection with an object or a source is not mediated by memory, but by an imaginative inversion and creation.
Therefore, I decided, instead of working as a photographer, to work as an archaeologist. I went there several times over the course of 4 years and assembled everything I could from the different stages of the reservoir (full or empty), also making comparisons of them in different seasons.
The result is a fictitious archaeological archive in which I compile photographs, documents, negatives, and objects in an attempt to preserve the existence of this place and what is still left, as it will all disappear at some point, its disappearance being accelerated through climate change.
Exhibition details:
- 15 pigment prints in 21x30cm behind glass, mounted
- 3 pigment prints in 50x70cm in plexiglass frame, mounted
- 6 pigment prints in 80x115 in maple frame, mounted
- 3 pigment prints in 30x42cm, mounted, floor display
- 1 display table with archival negatives & documents
- 1 photobook
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- 15 pigment prints in 21x30cm behind glass, mounted
- 3 pigment prints in 50x70cm in plexiglass frame, mounted
- 6 pigment prints in 80x115 in maple frame, mounted
- 3 pigment prints in 30x42cm, mounted, floor display
- 1 display table with archival negatives & documents
- 1 photobook
'With her work "Archaia" Verónica Losantos questions the possibilities of the medium of photography to create documentary evidence of historical events. The location of her investigations is clearly defined. It is about the history of a village in northern Spain that was flooded and rebuilt elsewhere. By compiling image and text material from different sources, combining her own photographs and photographs from archives, the artist develops a kind of fictional science. Beyond the information content of the images, the visual interaction creates a complex network of associative references that goes far beyond the idea of creating a neutral document. Losantos rather creates a subjective construction of memory and research that awakens the viewer's interest in the subject matter dealt with and at the same time leaves room for individual interpretations.'
ARCHAIA, the book dummy:
Dimensions: 18x24cm
Nr. of pages: 150
Paper: Pergraphica 100gr & tracing paper 80gr.
Binding: Thread stitched binding
Material: Matt black Hardcover
Finishing: blind embossing for title and author name
Other: contains 3 fold-out pages and an appendix with the translation of the documents into English.
This book is a dummy and has not been published yet. If you would like to support me & make its publication possible send me an email!
Dimensions: 18x24cm
Nr. of pages: 150
Paper: Pergraphica 100gr & tracing paper 80gr.
Binding: Thread stitched binding
Material: Matt black Hardcover
Finishing: blind embossing for title and author name
Other: contains 3 fold-out pages and an appendix with the translation of the documents into English.
This book is a dummy and has not been published yet. If you would like to support me & make its publication possible send me an email!
screen memories
Sigmund Freud called “screen memories“ a particular kind of childhood memories. He distinguished between apparently indifferent and circumstantial childhood memories, and those which he identified as striking, important and emotionally relevant. In this process, the latter are veiled by those less significant memories, and according to Freud, this effect can be attributed to a resistance in the conscious reproduction of memories. This can lead to mistakes and falsification of those recalls.
For this project I dealt with this idea and tried to find out to which extent photography can help creating, altering or falsifying memory itself. In the series I narrate a personal conflict with my father’s absence. Our relationship ended when I was 12 years old, and some time ago I realised I never had possessed pictures from our time together. My memories of him were kind of blurred, and the fact that I couldn’t revive those shared moments through images, made it easier for those recalls to vanish and be forgotten.
Through my research, different questions about the relationship between photography and memories came out, like what happens to those memories that were not kept in pictures?; what happens when we look at a picture depicting someone who at this present time became almost a total stranger?; or can we bring back – or even change – our own feelings towards an absent person through photographs? Following this approach, I staged the memories I still have from my father in new photographs, I staged photographs I remember there was once from him or from moments with him, and I also created photographs with false memories along the way, in an attempt to see if my own memories could be refreshed or altered, as if I were provoking my own “screen memories” intentionally.
This project won the "Talents 2014" Photography Contest by C/O Berlin and the Kunstpreis Fotografie Berlin Brandenburg Lotto 2016, among other prizes & contests.
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Installation shots © David von Becker, C/O Berlin
For this project I dealt with this idea and tried to find out to which extent photography can help creating, altering or falsifying memory itself. In the series I narrate a personal conflict with my father’s absence. Our relationship ended when I was 12 years old, and some time ago I realised I never had possessed pictures from our time together. My memories of him were kind of blurred, and the fact that I couldn’t revive those shared moments through images, made it easier for those recalls to vanish and be forgotten.
Through my research, different questions about the relationship between photography and memories came out, like what happens to those memories that were not kept in pictures?; what happens when we look at a picture depicting someone who at this present time became almost a total stranger?; or can we bring back – or even change – our own feelings towards an absent person through photographs? Following this approach, I staged the memories I still have from my father in new photographs, I staged photographs I remember there was once from him or from moments with him, and I also created photographs with false memories along the way, in an attempt to see if my own memories could be refreshed or altered, as if I were provoking my own “screen memories” intentionally.
This project won the "Talents 2014" Photography Contest by C/O Berlin and the Kunstpreis Fotografie Berlin Brandenburg Lotto 2016, among other prizes & contests.
Installation shots © David von Becker, C/O Berlin
screen memories
C/O Berlin Talents 36
catalogue by KEHRER Verlag
“Photography, a medium still informed by a belief in "that is the way it was," seems to be the ideal means of capturing a memory. It serves as an external basis for recollection, makes the event portrayed meaningful, and also documents the fact that something is worthy of being remembered at all. Yet how reliable is photography in conveying memory? How can this topic be presented photographically, and how can the process of remembering be examined artistically? In her series screen memories, Verónica Losantos processes her own incomplete memories of her absent father. According to Sigmund Freud, these so-called screen memories are an attempt to overcome our unconscious resistance when reproducing the content of memory. Losantos makes artistic use of this method by re-enacting missing memories photographically. Blending reality with fiction, and leaving the interpretation up to the viewer, Verónica Losantos calls the traditional criteria of the truth of photography into question.”
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Installation shots © Albrecht Haag, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation
you & me & everyone else
"Man is gifted with reason; he is life being aware of itself. This
awareness of himself as a separate entity, the awareness of his own
short life span, of the fact that he will die before those whom he
loves, or they before him, the awareness of his aloneness and
separateness, of his helplessness before the forces of nature and of
society, all this makes his separate, disunited existence an unbearable
prison. He would become insane could he not liberate himself from the
prison and reach out, unite himself in some form or other with others,
with the world outside."
Erich Fromm - 'The art of loving'
Erich Fromm - 'The art of loving'
You & me & everyone we know is a photographic psycho-geography that shapes the paradoxical relationship between personal and spatial void. In this series of urban landscapes, Verónica Losantos seeks scenarios that echo feelings about love, solitude and the human need to relate.
Once again, the relationship of Losantos with the photographic medium gives birth to a series of images where the organization of reality seems to obey to an inner rhythm. Despite a consciously careful and meditated composition, the still surface of the images is far from stable, or solid. There is a sort of kinetism in her gaze that appropriates elements of the reality framed by the lens, and camouflages them into a fluid landscape of memories and emotions.
These series contours a walking choreography through the streets of different cities over the lapse of four years. The urban-scapes are a collection of voids and resistances, a measuring exercise of space and time and the way our bodies orbit around and inside them. Somehow like the cards of a tarot deck, the photographs become symbols with history and a context surrounding them inside the logic of the exhibition display: a framework (a journey, or a system of meaning) through which she processes her world.
"-What about the cards? Should I be worried?
-It's all here. You're definitely in a strange place. But here is the sun.
-That can't be good.
-It is.
-It's the end of the world.
-It's the resurrection. Do you want to know what this means or not?
-No, I don't. I smell the ocean.
-This is the one.
- Who's she?
-She's the soul of the world. She's in a very important spot here. This is you, what you are bringing to the reading. She says you are part of the world. Air, water… Every living thing is connected to you.
-It's a nice thought.
- It is.
-What does it mean?
-It means the only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone.
- What if that's true?
-Then you can change.
-People don't change.
- I think she stands for wisdom. As you live, you learn things."*
* The Mountain King”. Season 2, episode 12 of Mad Men. [00:41:54 to 00:43:49]
In his Art of Loving, Erich Fromm proposes love as the answer to human existence, given that its development and performance implies the dissolution of a state of separateness, which he believes to be the source of all anxiety. However, this awareness entails a trap: “the intensity of the infatuation, this being “crazy” about each other, for proof of the intensity of their love, may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness” * There is where Fromm posits the paradoxical thought, the ability to conciliate opposing principles in one same instance.
Text by Paz Ponce Pérez-Bustamante
Exhibition at the Spanish Embassy Berlin, 2015
Check to see the book dummy HERE
tüzfal
Every building, absolutely every each of them has a useless side, which doesn’t face the front nor the back. The sidewall (tűzfal in Hungaran). Massive surfaces that divide us and remind us about the traces of time.
This walls are normally not supposed to be seen, they only become visible if the building in between is missing or if it’s not so high as the previous one. They are empty surfaces, which are fulfilling a goal that is not theirs. In this way, sidewalls work as reflections of instability, the lack of resources or just a reminder of what was there and is not there anymore. Spaces that are both offering future possibilities, but at the same time giving the past a stage.
Thinking about the city development of Budapest, this walls got my attention, as you can find a lot of them here. Trying to avoid the already overrepresented touristic centre and contemplating the actual situation of gentrification in all European big cities, I preferred to focus on this gaps in between buildings in the district of Józsefváros and tried to give them a new function. This sidewalls work for me as a projection space in which I play with the forms and graphic elements, mixing them and building up a new landscape of fassades.
Project developed during my Erasmus Semester at MOME- Moholy Nagy University of the Arts in Budapest, under supervision from Gabor Arion Kudasz and with the support of ARTSTRUKTURA Kft.
