What We See Looks Back at Us

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The exhibition brings together the photographic work of 18 contemporary artists from Argentina. Curated by Daniela Pafundi, the exhibition arrives in Buenos Aires after its inaugural presentation at the Art Maristany contemporary art centre in Sant Cugat in 2022 as part of the Lumínic festival and its run at the Can Basté civic centre specialising in photography in 2023. This latest exhibition, now in the Argentine capital, has a profound meaning: in a way, it closes a cycle that began in Catalonia and now returns to the place where its emotional and cultural roots intertwine with new layers of meaning.

 

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Cairo, Cecilia Lutufyan, Célica Veliz, Eli Portela, Flora Nómada, Gisela Volá, Guadalupe Arriegue, Inmensidades, Julieta Escardó, M.A.F.I.A., Margarita García Faure, Natacha Ebers, Nora Lezano, Roma Vaquero Díaz, Sofía López Mañan, Sol Avena, Suyai Otaño, Valeria Bellusci.

 

The exhibition is conceived as a framework of artistic practices from different generations, with diverse backgrounds and life trajectories that reflect a scene within the current panorama of photography in the country.

What We See Looks Back at Us takes its name from a text by Didi-Huberman that proposes an unfolding of the act of seeing by opening it in two: we are challenged by what we look at. The question is: ‘Why does what we see in front of us look inside us?’ And even more so, how can this dialectic between looking and being looked at enable a space for active listening where it is possible to imagine new ways of seeing?

As part of the notion of (no) limit proposed by the Festival, this selection of photographs understands the liminal as a border and an encounter. An open field where power and vulnerability, uprising and affection reside.

The images are articulated from an idea of the body, understood as Verónica Gago does, as ‘an extensive surface of affections, trajectories, resources, and memories.’ Porous and vibrant, it is woven into a collective body, overflows and becomes complex, and enters into dialogue with all living things in a sentient inter-species skein. 

Curatorial text by Daniela Pafundi

 

I participated in this travelling exhibition with some photographs from my conceptual book How many bodies go into one body, which explores the possibilities of contact between two organisms that, when they meet, form a larger communal territory and sympoiesis.

 

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PLACE AND DATE

ArtexArte Gallery. General project coordination by Amanda Bernal / Lumínic. Curated by Daniela Pafundi. Buenos Aires. 4 September to 8 November 2025

 

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PLACE AND DATE

Centre Cívic Can Basté. General coordination of the project Amanda Bernal / Lumínic. Curated by Daniela Pafundi. Barcelona. 19 April to 20 May 2023

 

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PLACE AND DATE

Lumínic Festival. Curated by Daniela Pafundi. Centre d’Art Maristany, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona. 11 June to 17 July 2022