Curated by Diana Ali at Art Center Caravel, ARTE.M Association, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal 2024.

Concept:

We are facing many barriers globally where our identities are being bruised, rejected, and turned away. This leaves a tension for bodies, thoughts, and circumstances to be accepted and co-exist. Artists have been invited to contest and question what it means to face barriers. Often our artworks have been declined from being shown and exhibited. This exhibition gives an opportunity for the art to migrate. There may not be a utopia, but there are ways of overcoming barriers. Imagine the artwork being personified. What would it say if it had freedom of movement, no immigration law, finding asylum and a sense of belonging without being displaced? A fantastic array of international artists come together in one space to question, confront and seek sanctuary through their artwork.

UPDATE

Although the fantastic array of international artists would have come together in one space to question, confront and seek sanctuary through their artwork, the exhibition has had to confront a barrier. The artwork has not had a freedom to roam because it has been detained by customs. This current exhibition shows the list of artists whose work has been detained, missing or delayed in customs in Lisbon.

Local press publicity (Madeira)

Local press publicity (Madeira)
Cultura JM (Journalist: Catarina Gouveia)

Exhibition info:

Exhibition info:

Featured artists:

Julia Keenan (UK)

'Limitless'

(Sublimation print on brushed aluminium, 20.3 x 20.3cm) 



This work is a collage of digital photographs created by myself, the vista is from a beauty point in Madeira and the overlayed images are of sculptural works created in my studio, I am interested to take objects from the world and collage or reconfigure them into surreal structures - these can open up new ways of looking or perhaps challenge accepted ways of understanding. These constructed forms are sometimes shown as physical works but often as digitised versions of themselves.


The central work is a reoccurring motif which I would describe as a self-portrait through objects. Being born in Fiji and spent many years outside the U.K. before settling here - I understand the feeling of not belonging and otherness.


This work is a metaphor for artistic freedom - rising above tangible space to exist in an imagined world within the artists mind - here there are no limits. 


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