Mabi Ponce de Leon
13°30′28″S,71°58′56″W (2019)
mixed media wall installation (digital photos, earth, glass vials, thread, frames)
44 x 27 in.
$1,500
Feeling both foreign and at-home in the world, I explore what it feels like to ‘be’ from two places and belong to neither. Intellectually, one can understand moving long distances across the globe. The resulting disorientation is inexplicable and daunting. Through the layered juxtapositions of found and new images, I analyze symbols and meanings – interpretation and misinterpretation. I have been exploring geo-coordinates as signs of physical, cultural, and spiritual location.
Returning to the continent of my birth, I humbly walked to (re)connect to the land. Casting my insignificant temporary shadow on the permanence of this immense ancient land, I reconciled the conqueror and conquered within me. My photo and mixed media installations document my search within the Andean landscape of my ancestors. Through this documentation, the works reveal the abstract qualities of the land, the collections of soil and other natural elements, circumambulations around landscape features, and connections to the cardinal points.
© Mabi Ponce de Leon