I'm doing this project and people might understand or not understand it but the
fact that I'm here today as a female Latin American artist doing this
is more important than anything really and I think that is what keeps me moving
I'm Sol Calero, I was born in Venezuela. I'm an artist.
I moved to Europe when I was
17 years old
When I started working, I think I was more like, in a way, angry
The idea of exoticisation, this sort of colourful aspect of the perception of
Latin America by the Western eye and try to work with this. And make it even
obvious in the installation as a way of presenting what you would think a lot in
American artist would do, and play with that.
We are here at Tate Liverpool and we are
at the install of my next project called 'El Autobus' and at the moment we're trying
to build a bus inside the space. The concept behind this installation is
to talk about the perception that the traveller has before going to a place
versus their reality once you arrive to this place
I decided that if I wanted to
be talking about Latin America in my work, I had to be traveling more to Latin America
And it was quite a shock, to be honest, because I found myself also going
with a different perception of what the place was.
You see, so also myself,
I kind of had these preconceived ideas about Latin America too
The way I start is like I have some orientative sketches which are not very
clear but that's because I like to work in the space. For me is very important to
compose when I'm in the space to really shake the space so people forget where they are
And to sort of erase the aspect of either the institution or the gallery
I don't really like this idea of the artist as the genius. It's important to
remember that behind every project and behind every artist there is a group of
people helping. Especially in projects like this where we are producing all the
work in the space
When you come to a place or when you come to an exhibition and you have a
preconceived idea of what you're going to see determines the way you think
So we're going to just fill the space with as many decorative elements that we can
to shake whatever information you're gonna come with
I like to create spaces
where people feel comfortable, it's just quite simple. You have a chair, people sit
down. It's important to have time to process what you're seeing
In the audio
you'll have a description done by a tour guide of the places that we're going to
visit on "this trip". There's no references to real places,
it's all made up. It's putting yourself in this sort of imaginary landscape that
you'll never get to.
Audio: "You will notice that we are now turning off the main roads
and approaching the entrance of the Necropolis Huyotemanco.
If you were all wondering
wondering what the white things are everywhere on the sand well those are not
rocks as some of you suggested
No no no, it's not minerals, it's not landscape formation, those are
human bones!"
I'm using these references that come from a much more surreal place
The way I remember growing up in Venezuela, for instance, it has nothing to
do with the reality that is the country right now
I think I'm from a place but
that place doesn't exist anymore
When you have to integrate to a
new place, you are forced to mix so much information that it becomes so unclear
who you are.
You create a new scenario for yourself
I like to think that it's some sort of a utopia and see how I can transmit this
sort of dreamy, foggy place
Not everyone is given the opportunity which is quite
unfair no? Because if we were all making more art, if we were all thinking more
creatively, it would be, I don't know, I like to think it's maybe a better world or at
least we will be more open to think about things in a different way
you