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ENCOUNTERS
EN12

ArtBasel Hong Kong - Selma Feriani Gallery

In the installation No Land: The Water Ceremony five giant woven paper cloaks stand like ritual sentinels in the space. Residual garments of the artist’s performance, these “ritual investitures” salvage and revive an ancestral rite of gratitude to water in relation to Inca sacred places, geography and memory. Known as the “water ceremony”, messengers, mythical and historical figures dressed in ceremonial garments carry water from the sea to each archaeological centre from the Andes mountains, celebrating water as a vital element for humanity. The artist constructs the garments by intricately weaving specific cuttings from vintage atlases and cartographic documents discarded from public libraries. Through this labour-intensive technique, the material transforms from delicate pages of books into robust, even armour-like attire. The weaving’s stepped patterns also recall the sacred ruins and old scaffold textiles used in Andean culture as well as the practice of weaving as the embodiment of collective and female resilience.

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IN
CONVERSATIONS

Art Basel Conversations

If art is a vital form of communication, how are artists learning to hold space for the complexity that defines our shared existence? Blending geographies and experiences that bridge past, present, and future, artists participating in Encounters at Art Basel Hong Kong share their perspectives on what it means to live together. Featuring artists Catalina Swinburn, Yoan Capote, Tsherin Sherpa, and Lí Wei Moderated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director, Artspace Sydney and Encounters Curator Art Basel's Conversations is a series of live debates bringing together today's most inspiring cultural figures. The renowned program features thought leaders exchanging on the key topics shaping the world of art and culture. The talks take place from Wednesday to Saturday during the show. They are open and free to the public, no ticket to the fair is required.

Date: 11:00am, Friday, 29 March 2024
Location: Auditorium N101B, Level 1, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre

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ART
BASEL HONG KONG

BOOTH 1D28 - Selma Feriani Gallery

Catalina Swinburn
Thameur Mejri
M'barek Bouhchichi
Nicène Kossentini
Farid Belkahia
Baya
Yann Lacroix
Pascal Hachem

VIP days: 26 and 27 March 2024
Public days: 28 to 30 March 2024
Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre

NOW!

SPOTIFY

Exited to share the launch of Catalina Swinburn in Spotify with the piece NO LAND 'The Water Ceremony'.

The sound piece, specially designed for the premier work to be displayed in Encounters ArtBasel Hong Kong with Selma Feriani, acts as an immersive experience inspired in a poem by Guaman Poma de Ayala (Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (b. c. 1535; d. c. 1615), one of the most polemic and most admired native authors of the colonial period considered a primary source of information on the pre-Columbian Andean world and on the first decades of Spanish colonization. Recorded with the performative action of weaving in the artist studio as part of the ritual to complete this 5 totems journey of this memories of shared cartographies.

The artwork is therefore activated by the artist’s position as both fabricator and performer of the sculpture. This could be seen as a metaphor for resistance, where woven narratives are portrayed as a substitute for the silence of women throughout history.

The recycling aspect in this work happens through many dimensions: content, form and process. Following her performances, the works become sculptures with a history of their own and result in an amalgamation of history and memory. Regenerating these narratives articulates for the artist both a sense of urgency and a mode of resistance.

Catalina’s work translate into key messages and universal concerns such as: sustainability, identity, gender equality and globalization underlining the connections of the Global South throughout history.

It is “Aida”, whose pages are ripped off to make portable sarcophagi of the letter, which makes the tombstones of the unidentified fallen become archaeological findings of a present forced to be recognized acknowledged as a vestige of a damaged memory.

THE STUDIO

Combining the local crafts with the global trends; and showing how selected geographies share universal and mutual creative affinities.

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

2022 OPEN BOOK

Public Space Permanent Pavillion,
Plaza Chile, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2022 21,39 AMAKIN

Curated by Venetia Porter,
Jeddah, RK of Saudi Arabia.

2022 UNTITLED II

Selma Feriani Gallery.
Tunis, Tunisia

2022 ARCHIVES FROM THE FUTURE

Selma Feriani Gallery & Aninat Gallery,
Cromwell Place, London, UK

2022 CROWN LETTER

Institute Francais, Kyoto,
Japan in partnership with Goethe Institut Villa Kamogawa & Baron de Lesta

2021 ARCHAIC CONTINGENCY

Selma Feriani Gallery.
Cromwell Place. London.

2018 NARRATIVES OF DISPLACEMENT

Selma Feriani Gallery.
Tunis, Tunisia.

2016 LA FRONTERA PERFECTA

Centro Cultural Matta.
Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2016 FISSURES

Selma Feriani Gallery. Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia 2013 ArqueologÍa Anticipada.
Isabel Aninat Gallery. Santiago de Chile, Chile

PUBLICATIONS

Catalina’s work translate into key messages and universal concerns such as: sustainability, identity, gender equality and globalization underlining the connections of the Global South throughout history.

Matters of Material, Christies London.

WE DEFY PARADIGMS

CATALINASWINBURNstudio turns any creative idea into reality. Commissioning art is a creatively engaging and rewarding process. Getting a work commissioned gives you the opportunity to be part of the artistic process that is involved when creating a work of art.