Nadia Hernández
Nadia Hernández – 'Lejanía (distance) Part 2', 2022
“I find it difficult to summarise the extreme devastation that has occurred in my home country over the past twenty years. Finding maneras (ways) to maintain this conversation is a form of resistance and I’m exploring what it means to make work that is collaborative by incorporating my family. This has led to a process of translating words into visuals, visuals into poetry, poetry into resistance, and resistance into energy transmitted and shared.
The title of this work is drawn from words my tía (aunt) Briceida used to describe her mother, my abuela (grandmother) Nelba –a woman capable of anything, of healing a wound; of confronting an animal. The work references WhatsApp conversations between my abuela Ana and her two sisters, images from their childhood in Chivacoa, as well as scenes captured from our day-to-day phone calls. I am looking for significance in every moment to continue our querencia (sense of strength). Somehow these slithers of text, thoughts and anecdotes, haphazard in their meaning, allow me and my family to retain an aspect of our cotidianidad (everydayness). We may be geographically apart, but our spiritual connection remains intact.” – Nadia Hernández
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Nadia Hernández’s multi-disciplinary practice reflects a process of bearing witness to the loss of home and the symbolic power of memory and memorialisation. Informed by her experience as a Venezuelan woman living in Australia, and positioning herself both within and outside the Venezuelan diaspora, Hernández makes art as a means to connect with a sense of place that exists beyond psychic and geographic boundaries. She negotiates complex narratives, weaving the personal and the political, to create a highly recognisable visual language expressed through textiles, paintings, paper constructions, sculptures and installations.
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Occupying Space
September 23 – November 4
Occupying Space considers spatiality in contemporary textile practice. Five artists explore three-dimensionality in a series of fibre-based sculptural installations. The works are assertive and bold in their manipulation of fibre and thread; transformed into dynamic structures of mass and volume.
These exhibitors are part of a powerful history of fibre-based knowledge and skill, and together expand the assurance and versatility of textile practice today.
Occupying Space is presented as part of Craft Contemporary 2023 – our annual festival celebrating craft practice today.
Material: linen, cotton, turmeric, thread, recycled timber
Dimensions: approx. 110 x 220cm (two parts)
