Artist
Ignacio Navas
Ignacio Navas (b. 1989, Tudela, Spain) is a photographer based in Madrid. After studying a Fine Arts Degree at Complutense University of Madrid he specialized in photography at Blank Paper School. Along with other photographers, he currently runs El Local, an independent space for photography in Madrid. In his work, Navas presents us daily life narratives that dig into the complexities and contradictions of western society. His approach researches how political, economic and social structures are made present and shape our everyday affaires. In his latest projects he explores new interactive paths for the medium by creating photography-based interactive experiences and non-fictional videogames.
Website: http://www.ignacionavas.com
Everyday People – Elecmar S.L.
A series of non-fictional videogames about common stories from Madrid City.
Elecmar S.L. is the first one of them. Through the image, beliefs, aspirations, and memories of the owners and customers from a small business called Elecmar S.L., this project aims to explore the complexities and contradictions of the local commerce.
The goal of this first project is to offer to the viewer a narrative to think critically about how the market played out in the lives of ordinary people.
I dig into stories that show how big providers’ greed floods retailers with excessive stock and its consequences, how small businesses are forced to discard it even with the tremendous environmental impact of its components, or how commercial malls and online stores have reduced de interrelationships of the local communities, samples of the technicals’ little pettiness versus the innocence of customers or how some citizens see themselves forced to use sloppy strategies to save energy and try to lower the energy bill.
Kickflip
"Kickflip" is a photographic project presented as an interactive experience. This is the the testimony of a group of friends whose adolescence, in the midst of the 2000s, revolves around the skatepark of Tudela, a small city in northern Spain.
Using photographs and voice recordings, the protagonists reflect on the nuances of being a teenager during the turn of the millennium, how they discovered their own identity through subcultures that barely reached the province, and how all of this has conditioned their subsequent life experiences. The collection of these stories, the microhistory of a particular group to which the author himself belongs, constitutes a critical review of the values, stereotypes, and behaviors that have shaped a significant part of the millennial generation.
The materialization of this project consists of an interactive audiovisual installation. Using a control platform located in front of the viewer, it is possible to explore the skatepark of Tudela with the goal of discover all the different narrative threads of the project.
Ignacio Navas draws from everyday life to explore the political, social and personal structures that comprise us. His project is a critique on the capitalist system, and the
instances of micro-violence that define it.
With her Paul project, Cristina Galán suggests the subversion of identity and something sinister under the visually-polished surfaces of reality. Figures suspended in
time appear in an idealised but impersonal world, representing the clichéd spaces of consumer society.
A disturbing feeling also permeates Felipe Romero Beltrán’s Dialect project, which saw the artist recreate the everyday lives of a group of Moroccan youngsters, as they await a future beyond an immigrant centre in Seville.
In Como la casa mía Laura C. Vela accompanies Xirou, a Chinese immigrant woman, in her search for a way of being in the world. The work is both an exploration of the main character’s inner world and a significant photographic encounter between two women.
Finally, Lorena Morin reflects on family life through intimate images of her partner, herself and their children. Captured in shared domestic spaces, her photographic diary reflects 15 years of familial love and unbreakable bonds.