LETICIA RAMOS & ZEN MARIE IN A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
Dim Corners is an evocative exhibition in Johannesburg featuring new works by Brazilian artist Leticia Ramos and South African artist Zen Marie. The exhibition takes into account the city’s frequent energy shortages, and also the recent blackouts that São Paulo had experienced since this project started, weaving a narrative that intertwines the immediate physical impact with the broader, insidious issues of climate change and environmental racism.
Ramos and Marie, through their distinct artistic lenses, lay bare the socio-economic and environmental crises underpinning these blackouts, urging viewers to confront the realities often left in the shadows.
With her meticulous photographic techniques and hauntingly detailed video installations, Leticia Ramos captures an undetected megalopolis with eerie, ephemeral quality under blackout conditions. Her work is a visual symphony of darkness and light, where the intermittent glow of emergency lights and candles becomes a metaphor for resilience amidst adversity. Ramos’ work documents these moments and provides a stark reminder of the inequities exacerbated by environmental degradation and climate change.
Zen Marie has created a multi-channel video work, filmed over six months while driving on the De Villiers Graaf elevated highway, commonly known as the double-decker highway, in Johannesburg, South Africa. His camera works in an attempt to understand this structure—its layers, concrete beams, and apertures—and serves as a basis for speculations on the city it bypasses. This work reflects on the highway’s design as a lingering fantasy of modernism, one that has evolved into a present marked by fleeting capital, hijacked buildings, and failing infrastructure.
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Zen Marie, FLY_OVER (still) 2024. 110-bit, multi-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist.
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Zen Marie, FLY_OVER (still) 2024. multi-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist.
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Leticia Ramos, Witnesss Block (still), 2024. 16mm transferred to 4K HD. Courtesy of the artist.
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Leticia Ramos, Witnesss Block (still), 2024. 16mm transferred to 4K HD. Courtesy of the artist.
Dim Corners is a pretext for a dialogue between two artists who didn’t know each other beforehand and who share similar concerns, while speaking from different angles of the Global South. Just as a city’s lights can dim without warning, so too can the vitality of its residents; both serve as reminders that when the systems in place fail, the consequences ripple far beyond mere inconvenience.
Dim Corners is curated by Pivô. The project is initiated within the context of OtherNetwork, a collaborative project that connects independent art spaces worldwide. The ongoing curatorial project of OtherNetwork takes the form of a relay: for this iteration, NGO-Nothing Gets Organised invited Pivô from São Paulo to guest curate an exhibition in Johannesburg.
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