Daniela Ortiz at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

Artist: Daniela Ortiz

Exhibition title: And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances

Curated by: Irene Calderoni and Bernardo Follini

Venue: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy

Date: April 7 – October 2, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo opens the first solo exhibition in Italy of Daniela Ortiz (Peru, 1985). The exhibition presents a selection of recent works, including paintings, embroideries and installations, which reflect on the themes of childhood education and the transmission of knowledge as instruments of resistance to historical and contemporary forms of colonialism. The exhibition is part of the third season of Verso, the artistic and educational program developed by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo with the Youth Policies Department of the Piedmont Region.

Historically pedagogical material and productions for children have been built in aesthetics that resemble innocence and even tenderness. This never served as a barrier for transmitting deeply politicized contents to children, actually it was a strategy to do so with immunity. In this way ideologies that sustain colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism where implanted to white populations and imposed to global south and racialized people, shaping the violent history and present of imperialism into paternalistic narratives that glorify figures of white supremacy, while at the same trying to erase the genealogies, memories and present existence of anticolonial resistances.

The exhibitio And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances shares a series of artworks that through diverse pedagogical languages and children-like formats narrate and vindicate those memories, genealogies and figures from the anticolonial history that have confronted the erasure strategy of imperialism. From Fernandito Tupac Amaru, son of the anticolonial Andean revolutionary leaders Tupac Amaru and Micaela Bastidas kidnapped by the Spanish authorities and taken to Spain, to the children and babies from the global south territories that have been born after the imposition and posterior failure of violent eugenic policies of white supremacy, the works portray and create a visual memory of the concrete persecution towards children, reproductive and family right of those that confronted power by nurturing, caring and growing their communities.

Daniela Ortiz’ (*1985 in Cusco, lives in Urubamba, Perú) works have been shown internationally in solo exhibitions including the Kölnischer Kunstverein (2021); La Virreina. Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona (2019), Las Ataranzas in Valencia, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in Middlesbrough (both 2017), Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (2016), as well as in recent group exhibitions at Göteborg Insternational Biennial for Contemporary Art; LUM – Lugar de la Memoria in Lima, KADIST art foundation in Paris, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) in Berlin, Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna (all 2021); Kunstverein Hamburg (2020); Contour Biennale 9 (2019).

Installation view of the exhibition “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances” by Daniela Ortiz. Courtesy Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Daniela Ortiz, In the celebration of our struggles is their collapse, 2021, installation view, “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Alessandro Peirone

Daniela Ortiz, I figli non sono della lupa, 2021, installation view, “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Alessandro Peirone

Daniela Ortiz, Anti-colonial prayer to Fernandito Tupac Amaru Bastidas, 2020, installation view, “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Alessandro Peirone

Daniela Ortiz, The Abc of racist Europe, 2017, installation view, “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Alessandro Peirone

Daniela Ortiz, Walter, 2019, installation view, “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Alessandro Peirone

Daniela Ortiz, Samuel and Naseb. A resistance story in 7 pranks, 2021, installation view, “And We Will Harvest the Knowledges of Our Resistances”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Alessandro Peirone