Asicaz Monzón-Aguirre

Lives and works in Medellin, Colombia and Brooklyn, USA

Artist statement

Artist Statement Asicaz Monzón-Aguirre As a naturalized binational subject and first generation migrant I have been in and out of neo-colonized regions all of my life, inevitably adjusting my behaviour according to societal norms and expectations. As such I navigate themes of translation, erasure, social adequacy and cultural exchange. This has made me particularly aware of the interplay between power, ethnicity, gender and land in the shaping of personal and collective identity. Rooted in the material culture of the Northern Andes, I make artwork that invites viewers to engage with the complex subject of memory and representation. I am the product of a region profoundly impacted by the human and cultural toll of forced disappearance and displacement. Because of this, memory is a central theme in my work, expressed through acts of veiling and unveiling as well as burying and exhuming – both literally and metaphorically. I work predominantly in sculpture, employing traditional forms and ways of building in pottery, metal, needle work, wood, and bahareque as well as modern and contemporary materials like nail polish, pleather and spandex, to create tension and drive meaning into my work. I often replicate and modify ancient or historical artifacts and in doing so, I reference Experimental Archaeology, a method of research that beyond being a scientific approach, I have witnessed to be instrumental in enacting ancestral memory in regions that have suffered ethnic erasure....

Artwork