Other modes of residency
GARI ARAMBARRI + GIN RO: UNCERTAIN ENDPOINT
by
Gari Arambarri and Gin Ro present the results of the work developed during their residency in August 2024.
INAUGURATION
Tuesday, 3 December 2024, 19:00
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
From Thursday to Saturday, from 5 to 21 December 2024. 17:00-20:00
Sunday, 22 December 2024. 11:00-14:00*
UNCERTAIN ENDPOINT
This residency was conceived as an encounter between two artists; Paul Valéry speaks of lagoons as a starting point. We think of bodies of water as a conceptual and physical space and a point of departure in the search for meaning.
In spite of our contextual differences, we are interested in working on the basis of the similarities that unite us. Proximity to water is a constant feature in our memory for different reasons. A river serves for orienting oneself because it flows into another, larger river or the sea. The rivermouth is a point that one turns to when one is lost, in order to take a different course or around which to grow.
In some cases, as happens in the landscape of the Basque Country, water is a commonly found element that includes rivers, the sea and other bodies of water. In Mexico City, for example, water has passed from a material to an imaginary form, in relation to the rivers that once existed in the city and that continue to dwell in the collective memory.
We conceive of our artistic practice as a mobile starting point, like a river that meanders and has an uncertain endpoint. Disorientation is the only constant factor and the only orientation possible is searching.
According to Gloria Anzaldúa, nepantla is a náhuatl word for describing the space between two bodies of water, the space between two worlds. It is a limited space, a space where you are neither one thing nor the other, instead it is where you find yourself in a process of change. It is not clear where the sea ends and the sky begins, and watery foam is mistaken for clouds.
During this residency we thought about water, paying attention to its material qualities and states. Water that calms us when we are close to it and that washes us away when it sees fit, capable of moulding the setting with a fluid and changeable corporality.
Gari Arambarri (Azkoitia, 1997) and Gin Ro (Mexico City, 1986) are two artists who met while descending a staircase at the Fundación BilbaoArte, during a residency in 2021.
We are interested in manual, textile and filmic processes. We have shared exhibition spaces at the Fundación BilbaoArte and Art Emergent Sabadell 2022. We share an interest in subjects that include history, memory, lancape and gestures.