I BELIEVE WE LEAVE ECHOES OF OURSELVES BEHIND
IN THOSE ROOMS WHERE OUR LIVES ARE FIRST DEFINED
Ana Paganini
PT | ENG
IN THOSE ROOMS WHERE OUR LIVES ARE FIRST DEFINED
Ana Paganini
PT | ENG
Ana Paganini
I believe we leave echoes of ourselves
behind in those rooms where our lives
are first defined, 2019
Printed on acetate
30 x 40 cm; 50 x 33 cm
Series of 1/5 + 1 AP
I believe we leave echoes of ourselves
behind in those rooms where our lives
are first defined, 2019
Printed on acetate
30 x 40 cm; 50 x 33 cm
Series of 1/5 + 1 AP
PT | ENG
On the series I believe we leave echoes of ourselves behind in those rooms where our lives are first defined, Ana Paganini projects family photographs on the places where they were originally taken. Overlaying the images on the spaces that shaped them, the artist transfers their memories to the architecture that served as their background.
If, on the one hand, the experiences that took place on those spaces become a part of them, that is, if we truly leave echoes behind in those rooms where our lives are first defined, on the other hand, these echoes are but reproductions that substitute a bygone presence, much like the projected images. In fact, a photograph, by virtually reproducing a material body, can be understood as a proof of the absent reality it portrays. Operating between the past that it records and the present moment in which it is perceived, it could thus produce a ghost effect since it reveals the non-presence of the time-space it depicts. However, if we perceive it as a substitute for what it reproduces, it could embody the presence of what is already absent. In any case, a photograph draws a line that traces what stays as much as what is lost.
Ana Paganini’s projections, as if suspended in space, intensify this state of being present while absent. By amplifying their size, the artist frees the figures from the photographs’ confined frame and gives them a new corporality. Moreover, she expands our vision of the places these people lived in and the traces they left behind in those empty spaces waiting to be occupied. This work thus presents an overlap between the spaces in which the photographs and the projections took place, as well as between the physical space that supports the image and a virtual space that is added on to it by the photographs and their memories.
The images that reach us, resembling staged phantasmagorias, are a reproduction of a reproduction and therefore create overlapped realities that reinforce the duplicity of the figures they depict. It is then through a process of multiple virtualization and a reconnection with the spaces in which they existed that they gain a new presence in these series.
On the series I believe we leave echoes of ourselves behind in those rooms where our lives are first defined, Ana Paganini projects family photographs on the places where they were originally taken. Overlaying the images on the spaces that shaped them, the artist transfers their memories to the architecture that served as their background.
If, on the one hand, the experiences that took place on those spaces become a part of them, that is, if we truly leave echoes behind in those rooms where our lives are first defined, on the other hand, these echoes are but reproductions that substitute a bygone presence, much like the projected images. In fact, a photograph, by virtually reproducing a material body, can be understood as a proof of the absent reality it portrays. Operating between the past that it records and the present moment in which it is perceived, it could thus produce a ghost effect since it reveals the non-presence of the time-space it depicts. However, if we perceive it as a substitute for what it reproduces, it could embody the presence of what is already absent. In any case, a photograph draws a line that traces what stays as much as what is lost.
Ana Paganini’s projections, as if suspended in space, intensify this state of being present while absent. By amplifying their size, the artist frees the figures from the photographs’ confined frame and gives them a new corporality. Moreover, she expands our vision of the places these people lived in and the traces they left behind in those empty spaces waiting to be occupied. This work thus presents an overlap between the spaces in which the photographs and the projections took place, as well as between the physical space that supports the image and a virtual space that is added on to it by the photographs and their memories.
The images that reach us, resembling staged phantasmagorias, are a reproduction of a reproduction and therefore create overlapped realities that reinforce the duplicity of the figures they depict. It is then through a process of multiple virtualization and a reconnection with the spaces in which they existed that they gain a new presence in these series.