Impressions Gallery

Six contemporary artists from Colombia explore interlinking themes of repetition, memory and performance.

Watch curator Pippa Oldfield discuss the work in the exhibition Once more, with feeling



This major international exhibition of photography and video work is organised by Impressions in joint collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery (London) and is co-curated by Camilla Brown and Pippa Oldfield. It brings together both emerging and established artists rarely seen in the UK. Whilst their approaches are diverse, all suggest the notion ‘once more, with feeling’: an action repeated, remembered or re-visited.

Juan Pablo Echeverri goes to a passport photo booth every day, and has accumulated over seven years worth of self-portraits.

María Elvira Escallón revisits the harrowing aftermath of a bomb in the Colombian capital of Bogotá.

Oscar Muñoz brings to life a forgotten archive of photographs depicting life in the city of Cali in the fifties, sixties and seventies.

María Isabel Rueda documents the culture of Colombia’s Goth scene.

Milena Bonilla anonymously sews the torn seats of buses whilst traveling in the city.

Juan Manuel Echavarría records the songs composed by country dwellers displaced by guerrilla violence.

Some of the works, like Guerra y pa (War and Peace) by Juan Manuel Echavarría, depict cycles of repetition, either moving towards resolution or trapped in an inescapable loop. Others, such as Desde Adentro (From Within) by María Elvira Escallón, try to find ways of re-presenting conflict to viewers numbed by repeated acts of violence. Archivo porcontacto (Archive By Contact) by Oscar Muñoz, re-visits and re-examines events in order to evoke memories. Vampiros de la sabana (Vampires of the Savannah) by María Isabel Rueda is one of the several works that uses repetition, performance and portraiture to express or question identity.

All of the works have been made in the last few years and many of them have not been shown in the UK before. To find out more, pick up one of the exhibition guides in the gallery, watch the film or see the accompanying publication Once more, with feeling.

Once more, with feeling was funded by The National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Once more, with feeling continues its UK tour at Margaret Harvey Gallery, University of Hertfordshire, from 29 October to 29 November 2008 and at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum from 13 January to 8 March 2009.