I focus my research on the web of ideas that build our sense of self and surroundings. I’m fascinated by concepts that define social structures and identities, and how our story telling reflects what our minds have constructed. Humans are puzzling as they seek deep connections with one another while remaining tribal, fighting for recognition and competing for resources to a point of conflict and major destruction. These contradictions play an important role in the way we learn to exist and define ourselves as part of a group, a country, a nation or a tribe. This sense of belonging is, however, influenced by our interaction with a world increasingly interlinked to its digitalisation, something relatively new to humans. 

Through my artist books I explore the language and discourse in our social structures as well as their influences on defining our sense of identity.

Societies, however, are not strictly immutable, they are living structures and how they are formed and how they evolved is often mirrored in our storytelling. My focus is on the English language and the digital world with its platforms, its way of spreading ideas, ideologies. This is a world which constructs its sense of self through its visions of the past, the future, its myths and our storytelling.

The themes in this section deal with artist books interested in the notions of identity, otherness, and physical or abstract territories as in the notions of “US, YOU & THEM living in the “HERE, THERE & OVER THERE”. These notions of identity are in my work taken not always from a specific time in history but from the universal approach of lived experiences. I’m particularly interested in how we, being humans, end up defining our sense of belonging generally attached and informed by our societies in the digital age.

This Artist book is called La Maleta, the suitcase, and it is based on my grandparents’ experience as Spanish refugees that arrived in France early 1939 in what is known as La Retirada, an exodus of Spaniards coming to France to escape General Franco’s regime. More about this in the post, “identity & family”.

Blog

• Identity & Family
  This has been a very lengthy project where I learnt so much about skills and concepts to create artist books. The main challenge has been how to present and illustrate notions of identity born out of our family’s… Read more: Identity & Family