The new exhibition of Carolina Acosta (Eug), is part of the Residency Project La Pajarera, of the visual arts degree at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador. This residency took place from November 2021 to March 2022. It’s one of the permanent programs of the Parterre Gallery, which seeks to establish a dynamic space for creation that dialogues with the pedagogical processes linked to the arts. This exhibition is the final product of the residency.

The starting point of this exhibition is the quarantine of 2020, where an international call for entries was launched, with free registration for all artists interested in participating in the exchange project. Artists from all over the world could participate in this project, and the exchange consisted of assigning each artist, by means of a draw, to another artist from a different continent.

From this moment on, each artist duo began to work together, each producing an artists book to be completed by the other. These books were sent between the couples, and, once completed, were sent to Brazil to organize the exhibition.

In this project 72 artists from 36 countries participated, between 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Precisely, the Pandemic opened the possibility for artists to rethink their lives and the planet, being able to engage in an extraordinary and unique way in their creative processes, searching for answers and finding unexpected solutions. This project aimed to create an opportunity for artists from all over the world to exchange experiences through the exchange of Artists Books, in this period of difficult access.

Heike Berl (Germany) - Gail Stiffe (Australia)

From this exchange, many stories emerged, distances were reduced, artist books traveled where we could not go in the current circumstances, facing all the difficulties of closing borders, and post offices, and in the end, we have a collection, where each book carries with it a world of experiences and visions of this unique moment in which we are living.

Eliana Anghinah (Brazil) - Evangelia Biza (Greece)

The collection is now part of the International Artist Book Library, the artists that are part of the exhibition are:

Carolina Oltra, Heike Berl, Josephine Tabbert, Petra Grupp, Siegrid Mueller-Holtz, Mónica Goldstein, Silvia Turbiner,Denise Martin, Gail Stiffe, Heather Matthew, Altina Felicio, Angela Barbour, Cildo Oliveira, Eliana Anghinah, Lourdes Sakotani, Luciane, Kunde Borges, Lygia Eluf, Marisa Garcia de Souza, Maura Takemiya, Regina Carmona, Ann Mansolino, Gina Page, Maria Elena Vial, Mandana Mehrnia, İnci Kansu, Ismet Tatar, Hilda Piedrahita, Miriam Londoño, Anne Vilsboell e Grethe WiProck, Okasha, Rania Ashraf, Gabriela Égüez, Annabel Keatley, Olga Serral, Devi Dragone, Genevieve Lapp, Naomi Krajewski, Anne Rudanovski, Erica Menna, Liisa Malkamo e Niina Keltamäki, Dominique Rousseau, Pascal Minart, Viviane Colautti Ivanova, Evangelia Biza, Aliza Thomas, Cherilyn Martin, Eva Kipp, Eszter Bornemisza, Ankon Mitra, Karna Mustaqim, Kristveig Halldórsdówr, Laura Behar, Luciano Pandiani, Renata Giannelli, Keiko Horiguchi, Ilze Dilane, Ceres Lau, Haji Said, Margara De Haene, Laura Romero, Kirsti Grotmol, Lilia Puentes, José Luis Mosie, Roger Bellido Ancori, Zuzanna Dolega, Elisabeth Westlund, Therese Weber, Amanda Lynch, Juan Eduardo Pérez Padrón (Jepp) y Natalia Rondón.

Laura Behar (Israel) - Aliza Thomas (Netherlands)

The Project was idealized and curated by Ângela Barbour, the IAPMA Exhibitions Coordinator, organized by Ellora Ateliê, joined to PapelArte/ArtPaper Interchange Art Project and supported by IAPMA from the Call for Members Proposals.

Siegrid Mueller-Holtz (Germany) - Marisa Garcia de Souza (Brasil)

We can find this exhibition open from February 23 to March 17, at Q Galería, located in Cumbayá-Quito.

Therese Weber (Switzerland) - Lygia Eluf (Brasil)

Paola Paredes, through photography, investigates new stories that transgress the life of the LGBTIQ+ community. Skin Deep presents fifteen stories, representing the diverse sexualities and gender identities that exist and are present in Ecuador.

This project aims to tear aside perceived stereotypes, and show a community that is ethnically, economically, generationally and emotionally diverse. It rejects the limited definition of gender or sexuality as static or innate. It recognizes both as something fluid, built by each individual throughout their lifetime as they understand and consolidate their own identity.

For this, Paola conducted an important research, which arose from the question "What should I tell?", here Paola established around 20 themes, and was dedicated to interview activists, artists, lawyers working on these issues, and thus, she chose 15 stories that narrate elements of sexual diversity and gender identities, seeking not to focus only on the story that victimizes but highlighting other aspects that are somehow linked to this group, such as empowerment and love. For this reason, the 15 stories are as diverse as their members.

The concept of the name Skin Deep comes from the fact that each participant is telling you their story, sharing their gender identities, or their sexual orientations, and their struggle for their identity, to reclaim it, to discover it, and this struggle implies a process of tearing off their skin and looking Skin Deep.

Paola Paredes Albán is a photographer from Quito, who works with themes related to the LGBTIQ+ community in Ecuador. This exhibition closes a cycle in her work that was marked by three parts, the first her "coming out of the closet", the second an investigation on the hospitals of dis-homosexualization (spaces that pretend to "cure" homosexuality, quite common in Ecuador), and the third Skin Deep.

If you are interested in seeing all the interactive photographs of the exhibition you can find them here, also, if you want to know more about Paola's work, here you can find information about her past exhibitions. Finally, the exhibition is located at the Centro Cultural Metropolitano de Quito.

The BUAM, (University Biennial of Multimedia Art) is an initiative of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, in collaboration with the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito and the Consejo de Educación Superior. This project was created in response to the current context that the world is experiencing, based on the health crisis caused by Covid-19.