Javier Díaz-GuardiolaSEGUIRMadrid Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *
Your email *
email *
full Name: Gema Polanco. is date and Place of birth: Valencia, may 28, 1992. is current Residence: Madrid. Training: BA (Hons) Photography at the London College of communication, University of the Arts, London (2015). Master PHotoEspaña (2016) and a Master of Visual Arts and Education: A perspective constructionist, of the University of Barcelona. (2017). is current Occupation: Artist and illustrator
What you are interested in. I’m interested in what is not seen, what is hidden or is sailing and we we transmit it between us without questioning it almost always and so innocent. Work on the heritages and social forms of care that we inherited women, and we pass through the care, advice, without being aware. These subtle forms of oppression are silent, difficult to see, are strongly linked to the established. I like to give light to things that are in the fund, which have been normalized but that somehow we do not belong. Pouring water on the coffee grounds that have already become part of the glass. Women, more than ever, we need to flow and not feel guilty about it.
“Blue Girl” (2019) – G. P.
where it comes From. so far, the project has moved has been “As God commands”, that has traveled as a solo exhibition at PHotoEspaña (Madrid), Pati Llimona (Barcelona), The Kursala (Cadiz) and is now up to the 10 September in the gallery Alalimón (Barcelona). In addition, some of my video pieces and installations have participated in sites like the Miami New Media Festival (Miami), PhotoAlicante (Alicante), PhotoRumania (Romania), Las Cigarreras (Alicante) or Circulation(s) Festival in Paris.
Detail of the photobook “As God commands” – G. P.
he Knew that he would devote himself to the art… What I knew since I was little, and I feel very lucky because it is something very magical, transcendental and visceral for me. There has been No doubt. I’ve always felt and it has accompanied me until now. Rather, I believe that there has been no escape: it is my purge, my way of healing, to educate myself, understand and share. It is my way of living.
G. P.
What is the strangest thing that has had to make in art to “survive”? This question, as you are pointing to, is complicated because we move into the darker part of the art or that no one wants to talk much about it. Being an artist is fascinating, but it is very complicated, by precariousness, and to work in the sector even more, because it blends a lot of emotions, egos, and dreams, with many power relations by means. Sometimes this is an exploding bomb.
The history of “it works for me and I see your work” is still very common, and to me it makes me very sad. I, like many comrades, I’m fed up of casualisation within the art and, sometimes, between the artists themselves. Since I was in the race, I have been an assistant of artists and almost all have left their mark on me. I have been a model for them, I created the scenery for photographers ‘ images, I have produced pieces from beginning to end, mounts exhibitions…
Detail of “Just thinking about it hurts” (2015) – G. P.
Your I’s “virtual”. I have instagram myself ( @gemapolanco), and my own project ( @navajaautomaticapress). Also, I have a web page ( www.gemapolancoasensi.com). In terms of what consumption in the digital realm, is very varied: lots of films and shorts on platforms such classics as www.filmin.com; video art and art in www.ubu.com; I put the day of the cultural scene in Spain and outside in magazines, and online platforms such as Clavoardiendo or Masdearte… And then consumption many pages of museums, especially the part of the seminars and education, as can be the website of the Photographers Gallery of London,s that never fails, Instagram of the artists and curators that I admire…
Where you are when you are not making art. I Just teach the workshop “The autobiographical as a form of resistance” as part of the programming of Photoalicante, and Thursday, September 10, it will render in the gallery Alalimón of Barcelona. In the workshop I talk about the importance of working from the most intimate and from the D. I. y (the do-it-yourself) as a form of resistance and important tool to build your story and imaginary.
in Addition, I am the founder of Knife Press, with which I make cultural artifacts that sometimes take the form of zines, books, clothing, facilities, or all at once. Each piece is unique and made by hand, without censorship, without fear, taking risks, and giving light to other possible realities.
Detail of “Lineage” (2020) – G. P.
you Will like if you know… What the generations is complicated for me. I try not to look in one direction, and many times what inspires me or where born my ideas has nothing to do with the art. My influences are my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather… that where I come from… But yes, there have been big names that have accompanied me: Jo Spence, Louise Bourgeoise, Ana Mendieta, Pilar Albarracín, Nan Goldin, Dorothea Lange, Esther Ferrer, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Elianor Carucci, Wolfgang Tillmans, Robert Mapplethorpe, Leigh Ledare…
About friends, most contemporary artists or people of my generation and environment that I admire and respect, I would mention Carlos Monleón, because his work is the future; to Maria Ona, because even though she not refer to herself as an artist or a feminist, is the artist more feminist than there are in the scene with his powerful work “high Heels and drills”. And Silvia Rosi, because, although we come from different places, we grow together. And although I don’t know but whose work makes me vibrate and makes me the creeps, bring it up to Laia Estruch, Teresa Zelenkova and Cato Loland.
Detail of “Ladies Funky” (2019) – G. P.
What you bring in hand right now. Now I find myself in times of production since a while ago, setting up projects, testing things and writing. I usually work on several ideas at once, which sometimes become one. Other I have with me a while, resting, until I achieve it.
Now I’m doing a piece that makes me a lot of illusion in which I make an appeal to women who want to sew some scarring, drop and build together. The idea is to make a great mantle with a little bit of all, a piece of cloth embroidered each one and give light to a wound that is common to be able to start to sew, heal and heal. In fact, if any reader will want to participate, does not give with what technique, I write to infogemapolanco@gmail.com.
This comes up because I am currently embroidering with the sewing machine and fabrics with thoughts and conversations with my friends and women I admire. Women warriors, sensitive and vulnerable which are reviewed, and question their role as a woman and artist in society, not accepting the role that this gives us. In these new pieces, I work with my mother and, for the first time, with a singer with an imaginary beautiful flamenco, “The picorrita”, that puts voice to the fabrics.
in Addition, I am doing a project that takes a time with me on family lineages and the symbolic value of the objects that we inherited.
Mounting of “As God commands” in gallery Alalimón – G. P.
favorite Project so far. I feel satisfied of all, I come from them. With the fabrics, I am excited because all of a sudden what textile is more important than the photo, and these changes are necessary for me. The categories or that I entrain I do not like. People change and my pieces change, grow and age with me. I recently pulled my photobook “As God commands”, edited by Gonzalo Hit along with The Kursala, designed by Marine Meyer, I am very proud of that, and I think that they also.
Detail of the photobook “As god commands” – G. P. .
why should we trust it? I don’t want to convince anyone of that I want to, trust or likes my work. I think that is exactly what I’m talking about him and what I try to understand in my personal life. Force to want or to consume is not cool at all.
I Think that there are that share the learnings, the culture, the education, and that people can choose and be aware of it, to be free. Give you the tools to do this.
I, as an artist and woman, I like to share how I have come out of painful processes, of feelings of guilt and how to work with what we give birth.
I Use art as a form of reinventarme, to reinterpret my past, questioning the discourse; as a form of resistance to what is established and as the search for a better world.
Detail of “Kill the hours, like my mother” (2018). Action to video – G. P.
Where do you see a year? I Hope that in the periphery of Madrid, making my fabrics on the floor, surrounded by plants and dogs, loving and creating. Open to the future, open to follow.
who passed the witness of this interview? The artist Carlos Monleón because I know that it is working on amazing things, because his life and work go hand in hand, to give importance to the processes and because I wish I would have explained it all before.
Defínase in a stroke.
See the comments
