solo exhibition, christian olid-ramirez, november 2024

The work included in Ramírez’s solo exhibition is influenced by the Mexican folk tradition of Cartonería, a traditional papier-mâché craft in Mexico, Mesoamerican sculpture. Many of these works begin by addressing the margins, an approach that allows new possibilities for the center to arise. 

Additionally, repurposed materials of stained-glass elements complete the installation. The fragmented pieces of glass require a collaborative effort; an "acceptance of" and a "working with" approach. This slow process opens up a space of empathetic contemplation and ethical possibility, a reparative position that views the other as at once worthy, flawed, integral, and, most importantly, deserving of care and love.

ramirez writes that:

In the Latinx and Afro-Latinx diaspora, borders represent liminal spaces that reflect a cultural experience that resists hegemony. Rather than being merely barriers, borders, walls, fences, and margins, they are sites of bifocality, where the juxtaposition of multiple realities creates rich intertextual and inter-referential communities that extend like mycelium networks throughout the diaspora. Gabriel Orozco has referred to these sites interchangeably as "no space" or "new space" and "in-between spaces." Seen as such, borders represent the realm of the imaginary, an abstract space of creative speculation and possibility.