Cortège Exhibition

Illustration · Papercut · Handmade · Art · Exhibition · Installation

CORTÉGE is an interactive art installation at La CALA from November 2022-March 2023. It comprises of 40 paper cuttings suspended on tree branches in a dark exhibition space, inviting the spectator to illuminate the room and thereby project shadows of the pieces on the walls. Accompanying the installation is an original piece of music commissioned for the show, created by David Martínéz and Iris Pérez Mendoza from Teatro Bobó.

“Cortège”, or cortejo in Spanish, is the act of courting: seducing, attaining love. It is also the group of people who accompany a ceremony. Who accompanies us in life? How many of them are living beings? Who will accompany us tin death? How many of those will be living beings?
My “cortège” is a macabre dance full of phantoms, animals and all kinds of beings: living, dead, hybrids and imaginary.

The body of work was created in four seasons: Winter explores pre-life, planting and gestation. Spring explores birth, blooming and growth. Summer explores life, illness and ageing. Autumn explores death, departure and the after-life. The four phases are well defined though they also into each other organically.

Just as my process, the collection dances between dichotomies: light and shadow, life and death, fertility and fallowing, male and female, human and animal. This dance spins from one extreme to another inviting the spectator to ponder those transitional spaces, the entanglement of all species and the ephemeral nature of the shadows on the wall.

exhibition:

showing at La CALA de Chodes from November 2022 – March 2023.
free access upon appointment
https://lacala.es/historico/cortege-karishma-chugani/