Consuelo’s work is an effort to make the limits of the artist’s own convictions a fertile ground for questioning the status quo. Starting from the idea that knowledge is a never-ending negotiation, Consuelo explores the restraints
of our thinking processes, the uses and failures of language as a mediator and our attitudes in front of what we feel incapable of understanding. Consuelo comes from a research background, which has convinced Consuelo that knowledge is much more about transmission than it is about anything else. In this sense, and inspired by situations where communication is critical such as daily conversations, debates and social uprisings, Consuelo’s work examines how thin and disrupted are the lines that connect our thoughts to those
of others.

Consuelo works from own need to (un)learn and to embrace ignorance as an opportunity, seeking to question biased models of thought and therefore challenging the presumed neutrality of what we simply call “information”. In this vein, Consuelo creates manuals, maps, lists and dictionaries not for them to be clusters of answers but rather routes to further questions. Where does certain knowledge come from and why do we stick to it? How much of what we consider valuable knowledge depends on imposed social, political and/or economic structures? Is what we know shaped on purpose? Is it arbitrary? Is it necessarily true?

Consuelo describes her process as: Making art means to me learning how to learn and how to have an agency within that process. Above all, and despite the strength with which today’s world pushes us to cynicism, I do believe that facing the limits of what we know is a powerful tool to finally liberate knowledge from the burdens of elitism, convenience and capitalization.

To learn more about Consuelo’s work please visit their website or Instagram
View the exhibition catalogue

Curator
Kevin B. Chen

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