PARTS UNKNOWN: GROUND TRUTH
VICTORIA AHRENS (UK)
6.3 – 28.4 2020
OPENING 6. march 16-19

ARTIST TALK 7. march 14-15
Topophilia: A talk about our relationship to the landscape.

PARTS UNKNOWN: GROUND TRUTH

Victoria Ahrens arbejder med fotografi og grafiske installationer. Hun er inspireret af landkort og af de fejl, der i sin tid blev lagt ind som skjulte copyright fælder for at fange dem, der forsøgte at kopiere og forfalske kartografernes kort.

Fejlene er først identificeret mange århundreder senere, da oceanografer og geografer begyndte at bruge satellitter og digital teknologi til at kortlægge verden. Det er dog næsten umuligt at rette i de komplekse lag af data, og de usynlige billeder bliver, som oprindeligt, ved med at være – en terra incognita – ukendt land.

Hun skaber fiktive landskaber ved at sammensætte billeder fra det Latinamerikanske landskab hvor hun voksede op, og de smuldrende klippekyst linjer i syd England, hvor hun er født og ofte arbejder.

Ved at fremkalde de fotografiske plader ude i landskabet i solen og i vandet, bærer værkerne mærker og fragmenter fra stedet. Tryk og grafik er foldet til objekter og installeret i udstillingen som personlige kort over hendes møde med disse bjergrige grænseområder – hvor myter, historier og hukommelse kolliderer.

Victoria Ahrens er kunstner og forfatter og bor og arbejder i London. Hun afsluttede sin ph.d. i fotografi og ‘printmaking’ ved Birkbeck College i 2017, og arbejder som lektor ved University of the Arts i London. Hun har vundet en række priser og udmærkelser og hendes værker findes i flere samlinger i England, Frankrig og Kina. Det er hendes første udstilling i Danmark, og den første soloudstilling med en international kunstner i Enter Artspace.

www.victoriaahrens.com

Tak til Tækker for praktisk og økonomisk support.

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PARTS UNKNOWN: GROUND TRUTH

For this exhibition Victoria Ahrens looks at the notion of contemporary cartography as a metaphor for the constructed and imagined landscape.

Where the stars and the compass once served as our guide through terra incognita (parts unknown), layers of data collected from satellite imagery now map our every corner of the earth. These composite images often prolong cartographic anomalies, or paper towns, added to maps in the 19th century in order to guard cartographic copyright.

When these are found and eliminated from the map, ghost imprints of images are left in the data. Here, Ahrens looks at this notion of ‘unmapping’, as projections and photographic prints reconstruct personal ethnographies of places she has encountered, places that are meaningful historically, and cartographically to her.

The nature of these fragmentary topographies means it is impossible to grasp the landscape in a single view, to map it in its entirety. Like the stories we tell of places unknown, narratives are folded into the creases- like ‘maps’ – they accumulate data, fold time, and create mosaics of places that perhaps never existed, except in her imagining.

Like Borges’ tattered ruins, these are relics or memories of encounters with Parts Unknown. Grounded in truth, they do not however, hold true, as the images take cartographic processes back to their hand made and printed roots, working as entropic records of our existence and referencing the ways we have found to guide ourselves through the landscape.

VICTORIA AHRENS – ARTIST 

Victoria Ahrens is an artist and writer from Argentina/UK who lives and works in London. She completed her PHD in Photographic and Printmaking practices at Birkbeck College in 2017, and works as a Photography and Print lecturer at the University of the Arts London.  She has an MA in History of Art as well as an MA with distinction in Printmaking and Photography from University of the Arts London.

She has exhibited widely in the UK and Internationally at:
The Peltz Gallery, Solo shows (2014, 2016)
Julio Gallery, Paris, two person show with Laure Tiberghien (2018)
Ar(t)chaeology: Intersection between Photography and Archaeology in NiMAC, Cyprus (2019)
Another Land at Kingston Museum and Stanley Picker Gallery , London (2019)
Tierras Aridas, at the Centro Cultural Jaen, and Valencia, Spain (2019)
IMPACT 10, Santander, Spain (2018)
Contemporary Printmaking in the UK, at HuangZhou Academy of Art, China (2016)
Traces at TJ Boulting Gallery, London and Balzac’s Print Rooms, Paris (2016)
Celeste Photography Prize at Galeria Maragnone, Florence, Italy (2013)
Galerie Fleur in Kyoto, Japan (2011)

She has won a number of prizes and awards:
The Celeste Photography Prize (2013)
The Printmaker’s Council Award (2013)
The Clifford Chance Purchase Prize (2013).

Her work is held in several collections in the UK, France and China.

www.victoriaahrens.com

Thanks to Tækker for practical and financial support.

Exhibitions