Invisible

2007, 2009

holes (incision) on paper

The eighties showed the deep contrast in which even now, the Peruvians live with. Lima, where the economic and political powers are centralized, lived behind a civil war wich occured inside the country. Even though we see the violence of those years, we never wanted to deal with the dimension that had been reached. There are political sectors that insist on keep on forgetting the disasters of war and their reasons are divers. Postponing the construction of the memory of the years of violence is part of its strategy. Disguise was state policy, and we all submit and accommodate to that.

Invisible, argues about the blindness we keep to hold alien other reality; not about the imposed blindness, but for which we are accomplices. Martinez shows us the emptiness and existing silence, showing what we do not want to see, remember and know.

Ayacucho, its provinces, its people, their stories; are the backdrop that Claudia chose to show the wounds of a hidden war. In each province she etched with a needle pictures and testimonies of horror and pain. She strikes the paper, builds the story with deep holes and repeats it again and again, her action reminds us of more than 69,000 Peruvians we lost. The white color paper is the support, does not transgresses, respects and chisel a subtle mark, for in it we discover what is yet latent.

Martinez invites us to discover our past, blocking the view of the image by making it hard to see, for in it ́s unveiling we can build a memory and on it, we reflect on the history.
After four years of the Final Report of the Commission for the Truth and Reconciliation, we have not yet been able to see clearly the awful footsteps of our recent past. Therefor Invisible, is both timely and essential.

Claudia Coca - artist

Anamnesia- Claudia Martínez Garay / Rudolph Castro / Santiago Quintanilla. 
Micromuseo alfondohaysitio. Petro Perú Gallery, 2012. Curated by Gustavo Buntinx.

Invisible. Gallery 80mts2 arte&debates