Originally Meant for the Culture Trip (online journal for which the Feminister writes), this article is now published here a few months late.
The Peruvian artists Sonia Cunliffe and Silvana Pestana presented by ART in the Flat at Coya London open the doors to their new exhibition project: Uprooted. Based on the events following the Peruvian agrarian reforms of 1969, the two artists elegantly combine the arts of photography, collage, scrapbooking and cinema in order to illustrate in the glorious atmosphere of the restaurant the relationship between the State and the farmers of that time.
On Thursday the 12th, at 7pm, Coya London restaurant opened the doors of its Members Club for the release of its newest ART in the Flat exhibition – Uprooted by Sonia Suncliffe and Silvana Pestana. In the elegantly decorated room, guests would be served cocktails, all the while having the pleasure to look at the art spread all around the room. A book of collages and scraped newspaper pages stands by the door as an invitation to get lost in its reports on the countless stories of the agrarian reform. Black and White photographs of a gigantic deserted mansion overlook the crowd of interested visitors, intriguing yet somewhat uncanny.
Silvana Pesta (1967) and Sonia Cunliffe (1966) have both grown up in Peru and both exhibited individually in Peru and International fairs before this duo exhibition project. The Uprooted project started in 2013 around family anecdotes of both artists, one of which is narrated through a thought-provoking video of a farmer. Facing the camera, his back towards the mansion, he recounts in Spanish his personal experience living in these colossal estates.
The discomfort and yet attraction felt towards the world depicted by the large prints hung unframed on the walls reflect the work of both artists on the social and economic confusion that followed the redistribution of the rural property by the military government in Peru in 1969. The displacement of families went hand in hand with the desertion of properties, where men, women and children would often be left alone. The image of the mansion as the paternal figure of the State, that no longer exists but still imprisons, reflects the dismay in which those people were found and convey a very unique angle on the events following the political measures in question.
The heart of the show, however, lies around the fictional story “Cuando nos quedamos solos” (“When we were left on our own”) written by Soledad Cunliffe, Sonia’s sister, which narrates the tales of five children left alone in the farmhouse by their caretakers, while their parents are traveling and are forbidden to return to Peru. The artists cast their own children as the subject of the photographs and recreate the environment of the story, in order to capture their most natural reactions, when they think they are not being observed. Entering the realm of childish dreams, the farmhouse becomes the playing field for those children, who are faced with the immensity of the space at their disposition and yet their entrapment within it. In the back room of the Lounge, the display of a dozen of unique installations – magnified glass boxes inside of which were placed a series of superposed images – reflect the intent to expose an inaccessibility of the world of children, as well as their loneliness that cannot be soothed.
The London exhibition most assuredly also owed its particularity to its host, Coya Restaurant. Divided in three distinct and individually managed areas – a Restaurant, a Bar and a Members’ Lounge – guests were however allowed only in one, and that is the Member’s Lounge – mostly owing to the fact that it is here that the ART in the Flat exhibition will take place. Indeed, as part of their new Collective, Coya has launched an artistic branch for its Members Club, branch in which it hosts musicians as well as exhibitions of interest. The artists featured might not hold such fame. From Martin Chambi to Sandra Eleta, the interest, according to the Artistic Director XX is to find a meaningful and artistically stimulating painter, photographer, sculptor, who does not necessarily ‘fit’ in the space but intrigues the imaginative eyes of the members: the meaningful is sought over the beautiful.
Coincidentally and quite luckily, the interior design and general ambiance is perfectly in accordance with the theme of this exhibition project. The chicly trashed walls of gold, with wooden barriers, are just the right fit for the art nouveau and colonial wooden couches and tables. The warm atmosphere itself was cooled down by the sweet and sour traditional Latin American cocktails served by the welcoming staff: Pisco Sours. An overall culturally and emotionally stimulating evening.
– The Feminister.
The Big Feminist Apple 