Paola Sanchez / Portfolio

MARÍA PAOLASÁNCHEZ PORTFOLIO

MARÍA PAOLASÁNCHEZ CITY HOME COUNTRY DATE OF EXECUTION BOGOTÁ COLOMBIA 2011



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Art Work 69.000 Wishes Starbucks Coming Soon American Dream Casetas I Kent… PhotographyCultural Management Miami El BodegonEditorialDesignInfoArt Shows


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ART WORK69.000 Wishes / Pending (2011)

69.000 wishes was one of the five projects selected by the faculty of arts from the Andes University to be shown in the Quinta de Bolivar Museum. The open call for artists aimed for artistic interventions on the museum, that was once home to El Libertador, Simon Bolivar. The projects were to dialogue, investigate and take in consideration the physical space and con-text taking into account the bicentenary celebration of Colombia’s independence.

On October 6th of 2004 Colombia’s central bank issued a new $20 coin which was named after El Libertador, the Simon Bolivar Coin. Instead of accomplishing it’s purpose of benefiting consumers, the almost worthless coin (which is valued at about $0.0012 US cents) became the preferred material by many designers

to elaborate jewelry, buttons, and other decorative applications.

On February 9th of 2009, just five years after having designed, issued and dis-tributed the new coin, Colombia’s central bank decided to stop it’s production because of it’s scarce use. So, how much money was invested to design, distribute and promote a coin that only lasted five years in circulation? Having this in mind our initiative was to intervene the foun-tains in the Quinta de Bolivar Museum by throwing coins into them, as one does when asking for a wish. Our idea was to exchange the amount of money given as an art grant into Simon Bolivar Coins, (69,000 coins in total) and throw them all into one fountain almost covering it with somewhat false wishes.


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Lugar a Dudas is a cultural space directed by local artist Oscar Muñoz, located in a commercial high-class neighborhood (Barrio Granada) in Cali, Colombia. One of their projects is La Vitrina (the showcase or the shop window), an impenetrable exhibition space that can be appreciated only through a great window.

Along with Juan Pelaez we proposed the creation of the first Starbucks in Colombia (it’s important to recall that there are no Starbucks cafes in Colombia mainly because it is a coffee producing country and the “Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros” who owns Juan Valdez cafes, has enough political power to avoid the arrival of strong competition; this may soon change if the Open trade agree-ment is signed with USA). It was to be

Starbucks Coming Soon / 2007


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located in what is known as La Vitrina. The window was covered with paper and on its surface was placed a big image of the Starbucks logo and beneath it the word “proximamente” (coming soon). The paper was placed to simulate the way construction workers cover their sites, if one looked through the creases one could see construction objects in the “work area” like, a hammer, paint, drills, a sink, etc… Additionally, during the day one could hear construction noise, ham-mering, heavy machinery, people talking and a local popular radio-station in the background.

Besides the work site, we printed out flyers and posters advertising the arrival, these were given out during the 3rd gas-tronomical festival in the Granada Barrio, and placed all around the city in public walls used for advertising. The whole campaign lasted about one month.

On the ad, we invited the future costum-ers to visit the new store and have a free coffee. At 5:35 Lugar A Dudas was already full of people (although Lugar a Dudas (LAD) is in the same building as La Vitrina (LV), they are different spaces, LAD is on


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top of LV) some were the normal visitors, the art scene, but one could also see white haired, body-guarded gentlemen and some groups of high class ladies (most of these didn’t even know what LAD was) confused because the store that would symbolically place them in a first world country -charging double than any other cafe in the city- was closed, covered with black trash bags. Months before, all the McDonald’s restaurants in Cali where closed down due to legal problems and were completely covered with black trash bags and remained like this for months.

During the month in which the “construc-tion” and campaign took place, the Cali society discussed and rumored about who was the entrepreneur behind the anticipated arrival and if it would be better than the Juan Valdez cafe that had


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opened a few weeks ago just two blocks away. These and other arguments were discussed on an Internet forum made by popular demand. Besides this, during the same month the national newspa-per, El Tiempo, printed two articles, one announcing Starbucks’ possible arrival in Colombia and then another denying it. Starbucks later sent official letters through their lawyers demanding the closure of the store that never existed and the retrieval of any flyers, posters or ads which at this point had already been recovered by us. No legal actions were taken and both LAD and us were completely unharmed.


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During the second half of 2003 the Colombian art collective “Nadieopina” launched BECA EN DOLARES, which stands for Dollar Grant, it was an open call for artist to present a piece, which they would fully sponsor. The catch was that the grant with which every project had to be produced and exhibited was only of US$10. Nadieopine would register the entire process and present the win-ners in La Rebeca Gallery in Bogotá.

In South America the “American dream” is very different that what it may mean in

American Dream / 2003


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the US. In a few words it’s the journey that many people or families experience when they leave their native country and travel to north America (legal or illegally) to strive for a better future for them and the families they could have left behind. Following is a transcript of the text presented for the artist call in 2003.

The American dream is stronger everyday. United States of America’s recent immigra-tions policies are more strict everyday, trying to control incoming aliens which paradoxically seems to produce longer lines outside of U.S. embassies all around Latin America. According to estimates by the Colombian consulate in Miami, between 200,000 to 300,000 people have emigrated to the U.S, in the last 3 years, mostly middle and high-class professionals (half of them undocumented) live today in precarious and unstable circumstances.

These immigrants believe that by emigrat-ing to the U.S, may help solve their own “crisis” not knowing what they may encoun-ter like, discrimination, third category jobs, salary and even physical abuse; in other words, as they say, “it’s a dirty job, but some-one’s gotta do it.”

The 10-dollar grant will be used as shown:1 sheet of self-adhesive golden foil paper…………Total Value $3.00Plotter print ………………Total Value $7.00Specifications:a.) We will print 140 golden stickers with six different designs. b.) Each sticker, which will be cut in circular form having approximately 2.8 inches in diameter, will be printed in black ink.c.) These stickers will be put in places like bathrooms, gates, walls, doors and many more locations, of the El Dorado airport in Bogotá Colombia, U.S. embassy and around its neighborhood like cafeterias, parking lots and photo-booths; and other places that are visited by travelers or future immigrants.This project was made along with Juan Pelaez.


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This project was presented along with Juan Pelaez for an open call by the E.N.S. (National Labor Union School) seeking photographers for an exhibition named, “Work and Days”. We presented three 8”x12” (required format) prints that por-trayed the interior of a caseta (personal security guard hut). This work achieved first prize in the 2003 “open category”.

Casetas (Guard Hut) / 2003


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This piece was done in collaboration with Juan Pelaez for an exhibition commis-sioned by KENT, an affiliate of British American Tobacco. By using properties from the brand’s corporate identity we sentenced the impossibilities that the brand tried to establish and limit in their intention to use an art exhibition as a commercial venue. By using the pho-netic value of Kent we listed negations of different verbs inserting those, which weren’t supposed to be talked about (ex: I can’t breath) in an exhibition produced by a company compromised by its com-mercial and social stance.

Digital Print81.5 x 37.5 in.2003

I Kent... / 2003


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Photography


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CULTURAL MANAGE-MENT

MIAMI / 2011

I’m part of an independent art space called MIAMI. By independent we mean that we don’t depend neither financial nor programmatically upon any private entity nor the government which gives us the liberty to promote initiatives that hold similar views, not only with our perspective upon contemporary art, but with those of artists that aren’t necessar-ily part of the established commercial gallery scene. For our financiation we’ve designed and offered for rent a number of studios for artists and designers which not only sustains the project but they also let us keep in touch with creator’s devel-opments, views, ideas and processes.


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The space is managed by six artists. We are in constant investigation to produce our own curatories but we are also open to different curatorial proposals and projects from independent artists. We aim to become a cultural reference point in the city by raising thought provoking questions and by building an archive of projects that have a limited circulation in conventional art distribution chan-nels that work as a cross road for future investigators and creators.

www.m-i-a-m-i.net

http://www.facebook.com/pages/M-I-A-M-I/111185325634731

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164568550272112


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El Bodegon / 2006-2007

El Bodegón was an Independent space managed by artists where different kinds of events took place: art shows, parties, concerts and music, videos and magazine launchings.

It was not a commercial gallery; its mem-bers have financed the space by paying a monthly quota for the general mainte-nance of the place. The intention was to create a space for alternative practices


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where emerging artist’s projects and works with a critical content could be shown.

All events taking place in El Bodegón lasted only one night, the opening was also the closing, as a way of underlining the active and transient nature of the work shown there.

Links:

http://issuu.com/lebodegon

http://lebodegon.blogspot.com/


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EDITORIALDECORACION / 2007-2011

I am part of the editorial committee and in charge of the investigation and the fieldwork for local projects of the magazine. I also investigate works of international designers that have new approaches that may result interesting by contributing concepts and new trends to understand local and international design. I’m in charge of the concept, pro-duction and planning of every session by keeping a logical and coherent relation-ship with the main editorial concept.

The photography production is a job that is not well known in the editorial world in

Colombia, to the extent that some publi-cations don’t even recognize its existence and thus they give all the responsibility of a session to the photographer.

A good picture isn’t made of just good equipment, it needs a clear idea and the right means for it to be transmitted precisely. Part of my responsibility is to generate interesting, innovative, effec-tive, and thought provoking ideas so that the photographer and I can create a well achieved image.


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DESIGN3 Nombres / 2011

3 Nombres is a design Studio (under construction), the focus of the project is to import design objects from different parts of the world and distribute them locally via web page. We are also inter-ested in local designers and we hope our platform may work as a bridge between them, new customers and other design-ers. In the future we plan on producing our own designs and offering interior design consultancy as well.


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52.451.232Bogotá • Colombia32SingleCra 15 #31-50 apto 6117524057 • [email protected]

Colombian I.D.Place of birthAgeMarital StatusAdressPhoneE-mail

INFO


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• 69.000 Deseos. Museo Casa Quinta de Bolivar, Pending (2011). Bogota, Colombia

• Starbucks en Cali. Galería Lugar A Dudas espacio“La Vitrina” Agosto 2007. Cali Colombia

• No vengo, voy. Centro Cultural De España. Mayo 2007. Cartagena Colombia

• 40 Salón Nacional de Artistas. “Procesos Pe-dagógicos, la gran pintura mediática, curatory by Fernando Uhía”. Abril a Noviembre 2006. Bo-gotá Colombia.

• I wish you where here. Galería La Rebeca. Abril 2005. Bogotá Colombia

• Publication Revista Asterisco. Proyecto “Amer-ican Dream”. Noviembre 2004 Bogotá Colom-bia.

• Beca en dólares. Galería la Rebeca. Diciembre.2003. Bogotá Colombia.

• Los 10 elefantes. Minimal Café. Mayo 2003. Bogotá Colombia.

• Salón Fotografía documental. E.N.S “El traba-jador y los días” Galería Colombo Americano. Mayo 2003. Medellín Colombia.

• Kent explora tus sentidos. Mayo 2003. Bogotá. Colombia.

• Pintura Mediática Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Agosto 2003. Bogotá Colombia

ART SHOWS

MARÍA PAOLASÁNCHEZ [email protected]

Documents

Paola Sanchez / Portfolio