Artist Biography:
Born in Mexico City, Amanda Gutiérrez completed her graduate studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, specializing in Performance and New Media. In Mexico, she completed her undergraduate studies in Stage Design at the INBA/ENAT. For twelve years, she has worked in the field of performance and sound art, fusing the two disciplines in installation projects. Among the video series she has made: “A brief history of fictions,” the video series has won two awards: The Fellowship Competition 2007 and CAAP 2008, and was selected as a finalist for the national award Artadia Art Chicago 2009. Gutierrez has had artist residencies at CMM (Multimedia Center) (2001), ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie) in Karlsruhe, Germany (2002), Artist Village in Taipei, Taiwan (2009). She has also received scholarships from the Artist Residencies Program (2009) FONCA-BANFF Centre and the prize-EMARE EMAN at the residency FACT Liverpool and the latest in the Contemporary Arts Center Bolit, in Girona, Spain (2016). In 2011, Gutiérrez developed the video series “Topographies of Time,” supported by the Program Development and Cultural Conversions FONCA 2011 in Mexico City. This series has been exhibited internationally in museums, and contemporary art galleries, such as The Windor Gallery in Madrid, Spain, Khiasma Gallery in Paris, France, Move Forward Festival in Halle, Germany, Liverpool Art Biennale 2012 in the UK, Ex Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City, Mexico, and Action Art Actuelle in Montreal, Canada. Most recently, she is a recipient of the National System of Art Creators from Mexico.
Statement:
My work focuses on the relationships between the concepts of memory, home, and landscape. This exploration arises from formal documentary strategies such as oral recreation (sound), photography, and video. In the video narratives, I’m interested in the interpretive and representational aspects in relation to the construction of identity reflected in architecture and landscape.
The process of living between two cities, Chicago and Mexico City, was an important event that made me approach two themes: migration and identity. My approach aims to critically engage with the construction of the cultural assimilation of immigrants into the American culture through media.
The construction of identity in documentary practices, in turn, is explored in the video performances series A Brief History of Fictions, which raises the issue of subjectivity and oral history in nonfiction film strategies. The video series Time Topographies emphasizes the personal narrative through the corporeal absence of the narrator, substituting it by landscapes that are linked with their immigrant journey. This video series was commissioned by several art institutions to be developed as a site-specific video triptych in Mexico City, Montreal, and Liverpool. Currently, living in the City of New York city, I seek to deploy the walk strategically as a participatory exercise of social engagement, where participants are involved through a self-reflective process of inquiry and dialogue.
Artist website: amandagutierrez.net