Ex Voto

Ex Voto celebrates, with jubilation, performing bodies in the Canary Islands. It mixes up close-ups of Canarian wrestling, a vernacular sport, with a carnival imported by the Spanish conquistadores, to reach a transe through sensations and colors.

Ex Voto celebrates, with jubilation, performing bodies in the Canary Islands.

This territory stands out for Canarian wrestling  (lucha canaria), a vernacular sport, remains from the Guanches people, who were the first inhabitants of the archipelago, and for the second carnival in the world, imported by the Spanish Conquistadores.

My work relies on bodies in movement, memory, a sensory approach of a place. I am interested here in a collection (an archeology) of timeless gestures, transmitted througout time.              

The frames cut bodies into pieces, arms, legs, cheeks, like Ex-Voto, which are archaic and universel symbols of a physical offering. The absence of context blurs the meaning of the pictures and underlines the choreographic aspect of the bodies, the sensation of the effort, the embracing too.

The overexposure transforms human beings in sculptures and erases the outlines at the same time.    Flesh and sand are mixed up. Secular traditions, sporty or festive bodies are combined in a syncretic celebration where the off-camera generates fiction.