Activity

In this session, we would be focusing on Sandra Vásquez de la Horra's work, El Yo Esencial (2016).

 

Participants will get a chance at using craft paper to make a 3D structure, as well as create and draw narratives onto their works. At the same time, participants will also think about the kinds of visual cultures, symbols and images that shape how stories and experiences and expressed.

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About the Artist

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra's upbringing in a patriarchal society with a strict family and oppressive governmental regime found her retreating into literature and connecting with people of humble means. Her travels around the world looking for shamans and people with spiritual knowledge also deeply impacted and inspired her art.

 

Her drawings do not exoticise the realities of shamans and spiritualities. Rather, they appear as collections of wisdom from shamans, mixed with desires and nightmares. Themes of her works often seek to elucidate the surreal and mystical through creatures- not so much to escape from the world, but a way to connect to something bigger that is beyond one's usual senses and understandings. 

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About the Artwork

El yo esencial (2016) is a continuation of the artist’s experimentation of creating three-dimensional freestanding works. They are made by scoring and folding her paper drawings into simple house-like structures which resemble traditional Chilean urns. As one walks around the house, these child-like illustrations of creatures inspired by voodoo and alchemy seem to metamorphosize into physical forms and magical narratives emerge as part of everyday realities.