Dec 19, 2021
INSIGHTS_04 — Beauty has no other origin than a wound
Creation has many origins and most of them come from intense experiences. When we go, for example to museums, we notice that there are a lot of masterpieces that hide tough stories. Artists usually take inspiration from dramatic personal experiences, which mark the beginning of a line of research.
French writer and novelist Jean Genet, wrote about this in his book Fragments of the Artwork, where he declares that “beauty has no other origin than a wound”. The unique character of a personal experience motivates creation as a way of sharing that feeling with people who did not experience something similar. Through their work, artists have been able to get us closer to the facts that have shaped their narratives.
Boway Young was born in a traditional Chinese and christian family, in a small town around the Fuchun River, in southern China. Growing up in this context, it was difficult for him to share his sexual orientation with his beloved ones. After discovering his “different” orientation, he was pushed to accept psychological treatment. This situation became the scar on which he concentrated afterwards in order to seek self-reflection.
Being a Chinese photo-based queer artist, the best way to confront these issues was beginning from the root, his hometown. He looked for a description of himself and his close queer friends, through a journey based in nostalgia and intimacy. Inspiration came from factors that were once seen as debilities, such as sentimental expressions, weakness or affection. All the portraits and snapshots of the project act as a description of himself, identifying him, as a reflection of that struggling dilemma Chinese teenage queer are standing on.
There is a physical interest in the Lorena Florio point of view. Lacerazioni is, in fact, a study of the act of cutting. An investigation of how the cut separates, but also creates a new scope. That scratch is highlighted by the artist, which reminds us that there will always be a mark.
Now, the cut is observed in a new light and has reshaped the whole image. The cuts are placed irregularly on her photographs of her everyday nature. Without knowing anything about the subjects, we perceive these cuts as painful experiences, affecting our general perspective of the whole image.
Losing the presence of a beloved member of your family is one of the most difficult experiences to recover from. It changes your life and forces you to deal with that emptiness. Eleonora Sabet began this project in order to close this painful chapter of her life.
Her relationship with her father drastically changed in 2008. She explored this stage, trying to fight with her emotions that his image generated on her, understanding the different parts that were related to his figure. Photographs that she took gave her the opportunity to know more about her relationship with her father and how to deal with those feelings.
Chiara Ernandes born dead on 8th August 1989. She was resuscitated by a cardiac massage and after five minutes, her vital values were stabilised. This body of work began as an investigation, a search about what happened during those minutes.
Over the years, she just hid this event in the back of her mind, but it is difficult to deceive yourself. Chiara began an investigation of this event, entering her own mind to be able to question herself and understand that moment when she wasn’t alive.
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Boway Young(b. 1994, Hangzhou, China) is a photographer based between Beijing and London.
He mainly focuses on photographing the Chinese teenage queer scene, combined with staged memories of his childhood. He queries the self-identity in the awareness of diverse collective identifications.
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Lorena Florio(b. 1996, Pescara, Italy) is a visual artist and photographer.
She often starts her projects from simple elements of reality. On her works, physical and digital process come together in an attempt to transpose the representations into her own imagination.
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Eleonora Sabet (b. 1995, Milan, Italy) is a portraitist and documentary photographer of Syrian-Palestinian origins.
In 2018 she starts traveling in the Middle East to find her origins and develop personal projects. Her main interest resides in self-portraiture and her production focuses on analysing social issues, especially the ones she is related to.
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Chiara Ernandes(b. 1989, Rome, Italy) is an artist and photographer interested in sociological and humanistic subjects.
For almost a year she has been working intensely on this long-term personal project, which outlines the topics that she wants to explore in her visual research.
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INSIGHTS is the new initiative by Conceptual Projects that puts the spotlight on artists’ narratives. In Conceptual Projects, we truly believe that collaboration is essential for success and visibility on these days. INSIGHTS was created to bring together photography based projects that explore similar areas of investigation, initiating dialogues between artists and their projects.
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Images courtesy of:
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Text by:
Juan Blasco — Founder & Curator of Conceptual Projects
