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Sovereign of the Seas, 2022. Video installation. Arts & Humanities 2022 Graduate Exhibition (group show), Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, CA, USA
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“Each work is based on the archival reconstruction of a woman's life through a combination of historical investigations and fictional narratives. Despite their focus on a single woman, none of these works is a biography: the documents are edited and assembled in order to shape a series of possible narratives, and the archival fragments emerge as traces of forgotten stories.” (Giovanna Zapperi, 2013. No 105 Feminist review, p.23)
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My current project - Sovereign of Seas - explores, on video installations format, the intricate intersections between archive, sovereignty and territory, vast landscapes and the expansive landscapes that define our world, all viewed through the lens of feminist inquiry. The project began with three postcards I found in a used bookstore in Argentina, my mother's home country. The postcards had been mailed in 1993 by an Argentinian cruise ship waitress to her lover in Argentina. The waitress shares her experience of excitement, loneliness, and exhaustion working 14 hours a day in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. In this project, I use these found narratives as a structure for my own re-telling and fictional expansion of the correspondence. Working in collaboration with an American poet, I am expanding the postcard narrative into a story as true as imagined that takes form in a large-scale installation of photography, text, video, and drawing.
Sovereign of the Seas became a frame to connect ideas and generate a multiformat visual and textual fiction around these postcards. The stamps on the postcards carry the design of the 1961 Antarctic treaty, which links the glacier drawings that I was doing before running into the postcards. I aim to generate a dialogue between fragments of the 1961 Antarctic treaty text, one postcard, poetic reinterpretations, and pictures that my father, Jorge del Pedregal, took when he went to Antarctica in 2015. These works offer a place to engage, through a poetic language, with scattered ideas put together which reflect on contemporary Antarctica, territory sovereignty, and the intimate experience of loneliness.
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Mi proyecto actual - Sovereign of Seas - explora, en formato de video instalación, las intrincadas intersecciones entre archivo, soberanía y territorio, y paisajes expansivos que definen nuestro mundo, todos vistos a través del lente de la investigación feminista. El proyecto comenzó con tres postales que encontré en una librería de viejo en Argentina, el país de origen de mi madre. Las postales habían sido enviadas por correo en 1993 por una camarera de un crucero argentino a su amante en Argentina. La camarera comparte su experiencia de emoción, soledad y agotamiento trabajando 14 horas al día en las Islas Vírgenes de los Estados Unidos en el Caribe. En este proyecto, utilizo estas narrativas encontradas como estructura para mi propia narración y expansión ficticia de la correspondencia. Trabajando en colaboración con una poeta estadounidense, Catherine Niu, la narrativa de la postal se vuelve una historia tan real como imaginada que toma forma en una instalación a gran escala de fotografía, texto, video y dibujo.
Sovereign of the Seas se convirtió en el marco para conectar ideas y generar una ficción visual y textual multiformato en torno a estas postales. Las estampillas de las postales llevan el diseño del tratado antártico de 1961, que vincula los dibujos de glaciares que estaba haciendo antes de encontrar las postales. En este proyecto busco generar un diálogo entre fragmentos del texto del Tratado Antártico de 1961, postales, reinterpretaciones poéticas y fotografías que tomó mi padre, Jorge del Pedregal, cuando fue a la Antártida en 2015. Estas obras ofrecen un lugar para involucrarse, a través de un lenguaje poético, con ideas dispersas reunidas que reflexionan sobre la Antártida contemporánea, la soberanía territorial y la experiencia íntima de la soledad.
projection 1: A María Inés, 2022 digital video, 7’40’’ Collaboration with María Sander and Catherine Niu.
projection 2: Sea, sound,song, 2022 digital video 6’50’’ Collaboration with Sam Rathbun, Annabeth Rosen, Graham Mcdougal, Ann Hamilton, Phillipp Byrne, Young Suh, and Katie Peterson.
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The Antarctic Treaty, 2022. Installation: paintings, poems, found objects and artist's books by Sofía del Pedregal (Bulletin 67, Postcards and glaciers), other books: sonnet(s) by Ulises Carrión and A voyage on the North Sea by Marcel Broodthaers.
Postcard 41, 2022 Poem by Catherine Niu / digital print 12 x 18 inch
Antarctic Treaty of 1961, signed December 1, 1959, 2022 Poem by Catherine Niu / 2 digital prints 12 x 18 inch (each)
From the cabin, 2015 Photograph series by Jorge del Pedregal / digital print 12 x 18 inch (each)
Cruise ship (1993), 2022 / Watercolor on paper 11 x 15 inch
Postcards on shelves, 2022 / 2 wood shelves variable dimensions
Glacier 1, 2022 / Drawing on paper on the wall 20x25 inch
Here vanishes there (or seven stones) poem by Sofía del Pedregal
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