VISUAL APOLOGUES

Tzvetan Todorov, the prolific Bulgarian-French author, propounds in his 2007 work “The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other” two crucial issues to be considered within the project “Visual Apologues (Apólogos Visuales).” The first one is “discovering the Self is possible only through discovering the Other, who is in turn an abstraction built by the Self.” The second one is “the past announces the present, and as part of the search for the current Self, it’s important the study of the Us in the past.”

“Visual apologues (Apólogos visuales)” looks for a reflection with the audience about these two vital facets. Regarding Todero’s first conclusion, it is noticeable that, just as the author marks out, the colonization processes perfectly exemplify a “failed knowledge of the Other” and even, therefore, a dislocation in discovering the Self. Likewise, regarding the second point mentioned, the pictures that were used come from assorted historical moments; however, they coincide spatially with each other and are sensitive of being read today. So that, again in the author’s line, the past announces the present, thus facilitating the search of the current enlightened Self in the study of the Us in the past.

“Visual apologues (Apólogos visuales)” it’s an artistic project that seeks to inquire into the prevailing imaginaries from a critical review of historical facts and official tales; through works that fracture the becoming of history with simple but compelling gestures, aiming at two fundamental topics: On one side, the role of violence in colonization and decolonization processes in America; on the other, the optical reference frames erected by the Internet, the social media, communication media, and cinema in Western culture.