We mostly understand ourselves through endless series of stories told to ourselves by ourselves and by others. The past comes back to us in repeated flashbacks, it entangles with the present and takes new shapes and textures. This work investigates how the past crawls under our skin and marks our everyday lives and bodies. Layered, scratched and apparently damaged black and white images look for a balance between silence and the noise this silence leaves behind. Exotic plants, animals and landscapes from a far away place, entangled bodies and drawings of broken figures. Like a cabinet of curiosities, full of precious objects. An unexpected coherence filters in. Giannina Urmeneta Ottiker grew up in Peru, a country that, both then and now, struggles with political unrest, corruption and an unstable economy. Memories of tanks rolling down dark streets, military coups and terrorism were some of the stories and images of her past. In this huge country where saints and shamans dance together, where different skin colors try to cohabit, people keep on dancing like it doesn’t matter.

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