Roberto Huarcaya: Amazogramas

Dina Mitrani Gallery presents an installation of Amazogramas by Roberto Huarcaya. This work was created through the process of the artist and his material being immersed in the Amazon forest. Huarcaya spent two years travelling to the Bahuaja Sonene National Park in southeastern Peru, driven by the desire to translate the lush diversity and enormity of this living environment. Originally approaching the landscape with the intention to photograph, Huarcaya decided to return to an early form of image making, the photogram.

Created in the mid 1800’s by Henry Fox Talbot, this process is void of machinery, where light sensitive paper retains an imprint, or silhouette, of any matter obstructing the paper from light. Three 30-meter scrolls were placed throughout the Amazon forest using only the passage of time and light, along with the living system, to allow the forest to draw itself on the paper’s surface. The nature of the photogram puts the artist in the position of the mediator, placing the object amongst the wild, and waiting for the experience to translate. Amazogramas was first exhibited in Casa Rimac in Lima in August 2014, and most recently at the Biennial of South Korea.