The Loisaida Center is proud to announce

2016 Artist Residency Recipient:

FLORENCIA ESCUDERO

Florencia Escudero

2016

Objective

The objective was to create an installation in the Loisaida outdoor patio space that stems from the artist’s interest in sensorial experience and memory in order to activate the “empty grey space” to match the vibrance of the surrounding community gardens.

Overview

Florencia Escudero was born in Singapore in 1987 and was nationalized and raised in Argentina. She has lived and travelled extensively throughout the world to places like Caracas, Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, Houston, Den Haag, Quito, and Dakar, and she is a multimedia artist working predominantly in the field of sculpture, photography, video, and drawing. Her work seeks to explore her sensorial experience of the world around her through the collection of images and creation of objects, and she is curious about how information is selected and processed. In order to understand this phenomenon, she explores the relationship between object and image and fact and fiction through collapsing both past and present into the same space. Florencia Escudero received a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University in 2012  and a B.A. in fine arts from the School of Visual Arts in 2010. She received a full scholarship to attend Pilchuck Glass School Residency in 2010 and has attended the Nebraska Art Farm Residency in 2013. Her work can be seen in different publications such as Trapper Keeper, CREEPS annual, and Precog Magazine. She has shown her work at Coohaus gallery, Distillery gallery, Splatterpool, Asya Geisberg, and Y gallery, and she participated in a performance at PS1 organized by the CREEPS collective in 2012. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in Barranquilla, Colombia in a show curated by Edwin Padilla and in Seoul, South Korea where she has screened and curated video art.

Completed Project

The finished installation featured Escudero’s monochromatic palate pieces to highlight the difference between organic green life and the artificial as well as eliciting the experience of cinema and its history. The artist aimed to create objects that take time-based experiences and freeze them in the moment, and the artist visited local gardens and documented them, using the photographs to create a large scale face for the installation. The installation was majorly informed by Gullivera by Milo Manera, and the artist intended to retell the story to “push this experience of scale by making a huge book and have it contrast with other objects in the space that are miniature/varied sizes so when the audience ventures throughout the space their relationship to the objects change. The title GULIVER X refers to this character in the novel and imagines it as post gender one.” The installation also drew on the connection between Manhattan and Puerto Rico as islands. The artist’s goal was to create “programming that can occur while [she was] at the residency so [she] [could] attract a new audience to the center that otherwise would not know or visit. [She] also hope[d] that through the installation [she] [could] create objects that have a sense of humor and that the audience can interact with.”

Collaborations 

Part of the artist’s practice involves collaborating with different artists. She would like to screen a new video that she has worked on with Stephen Decker, who has created a score for it, and she would also like to screen videos by other artists the same night and invite Stephen to do a musical performance. Additionally, the Artist Karen Tepaz has been invited to give a prop-making workshop. Tepaz’s workshop invites the visitors of the Loisaida Festival to create something to wear, and she then photographs them wearing their creations. Escudero has also invited the “Colectiva cósmica” to give a collage making workshop. It was important for Escudero to work with these artists because they are women as well as Latin American.

Links

Words from Florencia Escudero

By Florencia Escudero,

GULIVER X is a proposal that I have been developing through visiting the Losaida outdoor patio space. My intention in transforming this space stems from an interest in sensorial experience and memory. On my way to Losaida I noticed the contrast with this empty grey space and the surrounding community gardens and I felt that it was important to activate this space.

By working within a monochromatic palate my intention is to highlight the difference between the organic green life and the artificial. The monochromatic is also a result of an interest in cinema and its history. I want to create objects that take time-based experiences and freeze them in a moment.

In order to create this installation I want to visit local gardens and get to know and document the neighborhood through taking pictures that I will then use to create a video of still images in the shape of a giant face.

While I was making the black and white objects I continued to think about cinema and the different effects that are used to create illusions. This led me to the retelling of Guliver’s travels by Milo Manara. In the original there was a man that would wake up in a different land each time he fell asleep. Each time he went to a different land his relationship to the land would change. Sometimes the land was full of talking animals, he became a giant or he became smaller than a mouse.

In the retelling by Milo Manara the story became erotic and instead of a man a woman was the one venturing through the lands. I wanted to push this experience of scale by making a huge book and have it contrast with other objects in the space that are miniature/varied sizes so when the audience ventures throughout the space their relationship to the objects change. The title GULIVER X refers to this character in the novel and imagines it as post gender one. I also thought that it was interesting to explore the connection of the book with the idea of visiting different islands, since the island of manhattan is so closely connected to the Puerto Rican island.

Part of my practice as an artist involves collaborating with different artists. I would like to screen a new video that I have worked on with Stephen Decker, who has created a score for it. I would like to screen videos by other artists the same night and invite Stephen to do a musical performance.

I invited the Artist Karen Tepaz to give a prop-making workshop. Her workshop invites the Losaida fest visitors to create something to wear and then she will photograph them wearing their creations. I have also invited the “Colectiva cosmica” to give a collage making workshop. It was important for me to work with these artists because they are women and Latin American. My goal is to create programming that can occur while I am at the residency so I can attract a new audience to the center that otherwise would not know or visit. I also hope that through the installation I can create objects that have a sense of humor and that the audience can interact with.