We live in an age of perennial distraction and have lost something necessary along the way: being able to see. In Physical Structures presented here, Ana Roldán invites us to re-learn this particular form of wisdom. A select number of photographs from Roldán’s Primeval Forms (2011) sit side by side with new works that innovate by seeing with intention.
Roldán’s photographs represent ancient indigenous plants found in the Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, Mexico. The 30x30 format is reminiscent of the square prevalent in social media platforms, where everything is meant to be rapidly consumed and thrown away – all of it ultimately of little consequence.
This is in sharp contrast to the very nature of those ancient plants that have grown steadfastly and intricately, sometimes over countless centuries in the Oaxaca region. Some have been used by local peoples for over 2,000 years and have great cultural significance, which is why...they are now preserved in the Ethnobotanical Garden. There they live silently with their ingenious forms, patterns and tensions – a wealth of patient richness.
In Physical Structures, those forms, patterns and tensions are recreated and reinterpreted in the accompanying contemporary sculptures. The elements of blue starburst crystals, electrical neon knots and porcelain pelvises are only evoked, because they were somehow in nature first. The sculptures surprise us with their reinterpretation and materials, such as woven animal skin to represent a vegetal pattern, fragile wooden arcs to show us the sturdy green vaults of a succulent plant. Yet those forms of nature are always there, gently nudging us to see them as the weathered solutions that they are – a precious tool in humankind’s constant striving toward innovation, whether technical or creative.
In presenting the works side by side, Roldán invites us to make this connection between the created work and the natural work and in so doing, regain the wisdom of being able to see, completing the cycle that makes innovation possible.
Mariana Villas-Boas
Entrada actualizada el el 20 may de 2022
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